
.•^°^ 











\ / *afe*- %./ -M^'". ^^-^ 





V ".T^' <!'^ ,.„ V '•' > ..V'. <:> V .. 






•e^ A^ ''j$M. 





< o 

V ■•■ o*^ »-. '"•^^ '•••■ 4>^ , ^-^ '°-'' ♦^ ^ 

'? ^^ "•• ^° ^ ^^-o" <V^ <5^ -•l■.' 

















CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



OR 



JESUS THE MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



BY THE 

REV. MARIUS LEPIN, S.S., D.D. 

OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF LYONS 
FRANCHEVILLE, RHONE, FRANCE 



AUTHORIZED ENGLISH VERSION 



PHILADELPHIA 

JOHN JOS. McVEY 

1910 



IHtbil ©bstat : , ^ '' 



£0\ 



J. F. LOUGHLIN, S.T.D., 

Censor Libra rum. 



■ffrnprtmatur : 

* PATRICK JOHN RYAN, 

Archbishop of Philadelphia. 

July 75, igio. 



Copyrighted 1910, by JOHN JOS. McVEY. 

Entered at Stationers' Hall, 
All Rights Reserved, 



©QIA2^5335 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND FRENCH EDITION 



The welcome given to this work has led us to pub- 
lish a new edition at once and to bestow the utmost 
care in the preparation of the same. The Introduc- 
tion has been notably lengthened. We have endeav- 
ored to state the views of living critics about the origin 
and value of the Synoptic Gospels. The reader will 
also find treated, as fully as the limits of this book 
allow, the recently mooted question of the dependence 
of these Gospels upon the influences of the faith. 

As regards the chapters on the public hfe of Jesus 
the Messiah, and of Jesus the Son of God, the theories 
of such representatives of later gospel criticism as 
Bernhard Weiss, H. Wendt, Oscar Holtzmann, Paul 
Wernle, Johannes Weiss, and W. Wrede, serve to 
complete those of Stapfer, Harnack, and Loisy, and to 
fully present contemporary thought in the matter of 
Jesus' messiahship and divinity. 

The special study on the formation of the Messianic 
conscience has been further developed from the view- 
point of the theory advanced by Loisy concerning the 
imperfection of Christ's human knowledge, and the 
progressive unfolding of His mind. 

We have also endeavored to give a more precise 
statement of the gospel arguments for the Saviour's 
divinity. Lastly, the two Appendices have been in- 
corporated into the main part of the work. 

Along with these more noticeable changes, we have 
increased the number of bibliographical indications, 
the references to the best contemporary writings, the 

(iii ) 



IV 



PREFACE 



annotations which serve, on each important point, to 
show the opniion of the leading exegetes of the day; 
when necessary, these notes become short critical dis- 
sertations.' 

Thus revised, the present edition, although not ex- 
cessively enlarged, nor placed beyond the grasp of 
most readers, will possess, we think, an added scientific 
value. We hope that it will be welcomed by all who 
are interested in religion and who eagerly follow the 
controversies which arose, of late, about the founda- 
tions of the faith. 

November i, 1904. 

^ In the translation, these notes have been all inserted in 
the main text. 



EDITOR'S GREETING 

Since the foregoing preface was written, M. Lepin 
has somewhat enlarged his book. To the fourth 
French edition an Appendix of fifty-five pages has 
been added, in which the author submits to an impar- 
tial criticism the latest views of Loisy, as they are set 
forth in his voluminous Commentary on the Synoptic 
Gospels. An alphabetical table, a complete biblio- 
graphy, a list of the most important passages of the 
New Testament cited and commented upon, have also 
greatly increased the usefulness of the work. All these 
new features have been embodied in the English ver- 
sion, which, we trust, will not prove too unworthy of 
the French original. 

It is but fitting that due recognition be given to all 
the friends who, in one way or another, have helped 
the translator in his long and arduous task. 

Particular thanks are here expressed to Rev. Felix 
Drouet^ C. M., of St. Vincent's Seminary, German- 
town, Pa., for his hearty co-operation and many valu- 
able suggestions. Moreover, the translation of the 
fifth chapter (Appendix of the fourth French edition) 
is due entirely to his pen. 

And now, it remains for the translator and pub- 
lisher to hope that, in its English dress, Abbe Lepin's 
little master-piece will receive the welcome that greeted 
it in its native land, and find its way to the desk of 
every priest, of every theological student, of every 
thoughtful layman, who is anxious to verify the soHd- 
ity of the foundations of his faith. 

The Translator. 

April, ipio, 

(v) 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Author's Preface v 

Editor's Greeting vii 

INTRODUCTION. 
The authorship and historicity of the Synoptic Gos- 
pels I 

Authorship and Inspiration 2 

Early Chris lian testimony 5 

Internal evidence 13 

Modern criticism 20 

Historicity 29 

Current opinions 35 

Influence of tradi.ion 41 

Outline of the work 56 

CHAPTER I. 

The dawn of Christianity 59 

The messianic hope 59 

The Messiah's character and mission 72 

Kingly destiny 'j'j 

The suffering Servant 87 

Pre-existence 90 

CHAPTER II. 

The childhood of Christ 107 

Historicity of the narratives 107 

The nativity 117 

Popular views 119 

(vii) 



I 



viii TABLE OF CONTENTS 

rAGM 

CHAPTER III. 

I, The messianic claims 128 

The rationalists' position 128 

Wellhausen and Wrede 129 

Christ's baptism and temptation 137 

Christ's reserve 143 

Doctrine and miracles 150 

Dignity and powers 152 

Messianic allusions 156 

The Son of Man 157 

Modern criticism 158 

Resume 165 

Explicit avowals 167 

The suffering Messiah 168 

The supreme revelation of Holy Week 172 

n. The meaning of Jesus' Messiahship 174 

The final Advent 174 

Opinion of the early Church 176 

Testimony of Jesus' contemporaries 183 

The Saviour's statements 191 

HI. The source of the messianic consciousness 198 

Theory of illusion 198 

Renan 200 

Criticism , 204 

Theory of evolution 215 

Stapf er 216 

Wendt, B, Weiss, O. Holtzmann, Harnack 222 

Loisy 23s 

Criicism : the public life 235 

The messianic vocation 236 

The Passion 238 

The Baptism 244 

The divine Sonship 253 

The Incarnation 255 



TABLE OF CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Divine Sonship. 

I. Contemporary criticism 263 

The sacred Humanity 263 

Rationalists 266 

Liberal Protestants 271 

Conservative Protestants 279 

H. Loisy's theory of Christ's divinity 280 

The Gospel and the Church 280 

" About a little hook " 287 

HI. The testimony of the Synoptists 306 

Significant declarations 306 

Christ's transcendence 312 

His consubstantial union with the Divinity 314 

His acceptance of homage 316 

Loisy's theory of the equivalence of the titles " Messiah " 

and " Son of God " 320 

The Only-Begotten Son of God 330 

Renan, B. Weiss, Wendt, Harnack , . 334 

Nature of Christ's divine Sonship ^t,6 

Basis of His Sonship 340 

The eternal Son of God 343 

The Son of David * 345 

The parable of the Wicked Husbandmen 348 

Christ's knowledge of the Father 355 

Protestant critics 357 

Loisy 363 

St. Peter's confession 374 

The formula of Bap'Jsm 375 

Resume 380 

TV. The testimony of the early Church 380 

The Acts of the Apostles 381 

St. Paul's Epistles 384 



X TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Johannine writings 394 

Agreement with the facts of history 400 

Agreement with the data of the Synoptics 410 

V. Christ's reserve in revealing His Divinity 410 

His peculiar position 410 

A guarantee of Synoptic historicity 415 

VI. The perfection of Christ's Knowledge 419 

Supernatural and experimental knowledge 420 

How far supernatural ■. . . . 422 

The end of the world 425 

The fall of Jerusalem 426 

The expansion of Christianity 433 

The final advent 441 

Significant texts 443 

Persuasion of the early Church 458 

Interpretation of the word of Jesus concerning the Son's 

ignorance of the final advent 462 

The messianic and filial consciousness of Christ 468 

Conclusion 470 

CHAPTER V. 

The latest theories of Loisy regarding the messiahship 
and divinity of Jesus. 

I. Statement of his views 473 

Messianic manifestations and declarations 473 

Part played by Jesus' baptism in the formation of His 

messianic consciousness 479 

Illusions concerning the future 481 

The work of tradition 483 

Jesus did not claim to share the nature of God 485 

Nor to enjoy divine privileges 491 

Conclusion : how the dogma of Christ's divini y came into 

existence 49^ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xi 

PAGE 

II. Critical examination 500 

Noteworthy admissions 500 

Questionable theories : the true motive of Jesus' reserve 

in revealing His messiahship 501 

Mere hypotheses : the real idea of the Saviour regarding 
the advent of the Kingdom of God and His suffering 

destmy 503 

Facts against Loisy's theories 505 

The question of the Parousia 511 

The messianic consecration 513 

Origin of the messianic consciousness 517 

The faith of the first Christian generation 521 

Value of the texts 522 

The interrogatory before Caiphas 526 

The ti.le of Son of God 530 

Conclusion 537 

List of New Testament references 539 

Bibliography 543 

Alphabetical Index 551 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

OR 

JESUS THE MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



INTRODUCTION. 



Christ and the Gospel ! An olden theme, yet ever 
new. None more vital in this era of criticism. The 
faithful, indeed, adore Jesus as their Redeemer and 
their God, offer to Him their hearts' devotion, con- 
secrate their lives to His service ; but, in the world at 
large, where is the scholar, the man of thought that 
is not deeply interested in the question of Christ? 
The sacred writings that tell of His words and deeds 
come under the analysis of the commentator; the 
documents that portray His world-mastering influ- 
ence are subjected to the scrutiny of the historian; 
while His majestic mien. His profound teachings, the 
extraordinary success of His mission are the wonder 
of philosophers. 

" That the gospel is a part of this past which noth- 
ing else can replace," says Harnack, " has been af- 
firmed again and again by the greatest minds. * Let 
intellectual and spiritual culture progress, and the 
human mind expand as much as it will, beyond the 
grandeur and the moral elevation of Christianity, 
as it sparkles and shines in the gospels, the human 
mind will not advance.' In these words Goethe, after 
making many experiments and laboring indefatigably 
at himself, summed up the result to which his moral 



2 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

and historical insight had led him. . . . But, in truth, 
this religion and the efforts which it evokes are more 
active to-day than they used to be. We may say, to 
the credit of our age, that it takes an eager interest 
in the problem of the nature and the value of Chris- 
tianity, and that there is much more search and in- 
quiry in regard to this subject now than was the case 
thirty years ago. ... In dealing with religion, is it 
not, after all, with the Christian religion that we have 
to do? Other religions no longer stir the depths of 
our hearts." ^ 

The foregoing criticism applies particularly to the 
study of the person of Christ. We care little about 
Buddha or Mahomet; nor are we seeking, and justly 
so, to ascertain what they were in comparison with 
God. But with Jesus it is quite otherwise. Jesus 
declared Himself to be the Christ promised by the 
prophets ; and in proof of His claims. He performed 
many miracles. He called Himself the Son of God, 
and so true has His assertion seemed that for the last 
nineteen centuries He has been adored as the true Son 
of God and true God. Such is the fact of history. 
How interpret it ? Was Jesus truly what He claimed 
to be? Is He really what Christian thought has ever 
considered Him to be ? This topic is discussed nowa- 
days more than ever before. In this prefatory essay, 
it will be treated alike from the view-point of modern 
criticism and in accordance with a method befitting the 
demands of recent research. 

Inspiration. — It is chiefly by the aid of the gospels 
that our historical study of Christ is to be pursued; 
for it is there that we meet with the earliest portrayal 
of the Saviour as He appeared to men ; it is there that 
His deeds are recorded ; it is there that His discourses 
are reproduced ; it is there that we learn of the im- 
pression that He made upon His followers and of the 

1 Harnack, What is Christianity? p. 56. 



INTRODUCTION 3 

opinion formed of Him by those amongst whom He 
Hved. 

We may ask, accordingly, before proceeding further : 
What authority have these writings which are to 
serve as the basis of our investigations ? In the four 
gospels, called canonical, the Church has always re- 
cognized an absolutely reliable basis for our faith. 
Its official teaching states that they were composed re- 
spectively by two of the Saviour's disciples, SS. Mark 
and Luke, and by two of His apostles, SS. Matthew 
and John; that each wrote under the influence of 
divine inspiration, or with a special assistance of the 
Holy Spirit that stimulated their intelligence and will 
and so helped them in their task that the authorship 
of the gospels is due not merely to men, but to God 
Himself ; and that, although arranged in a human way 
and expressed in a human style, they present the very 
thought and word of God. 

The Church, indeed, has not issued a definition of 
faith as regards the human authorship, but simply the 
divine inspiration of our sacred writings. Neverthe- 
less, the Council of Trent, in its enumeration of the 
sacred books whose inspiration it also defines, mentions 
" the four gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
and John," as being, in its estimation, undoubtedly in 
real dependence upon the writers S. Matthew, S. Mark, 
S. Luke, and S. John. This indication, although made 
intentionally, did not form part of the definition itself ; 
but it is an authoritative recommendation and, as it 
were, an official request to maintain the relationship 
of these gospels with those authors whom tradition has 
always accepted.^ 

The fact of biblical inspiration, then, is not the result 
of discoveries in the field of historical criticism. It is 
a dogma of the faith taught by the Church. And the 
Church is competent to teach it : for the Church comes 

1 Loisy, Hist, du Canon du N. Test., 1891, p. 250. 



4 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

from God, it speaks in God's name, its teachings are 
sanctioned by God's authority. From the first, the 
Church appeared among men with Christ as its 
founder. Now, we know that the gospels, considered 
merely as human documents, tell us that Christ was 
sent from heaven. In its historical past as in its pres- 
ent career, in the numerous testimonies given by God 
in proof of His action and presence therein, in its 
achievements and in its saints, the Church bears the 
visible seal of its divine origin. Nay more, that the 
Church is divine in its origin, and in its authority, fol- 
lows from the fact that we must necessarily admit that 
there exists a positive religion formally approved and 
willed by God. Why so? Because if there exists a 
personal God who takes an interest in men and who 
wishes them to honor Him ; if there is a true religion 
which He has sanctioned and imposed upon men, it 
can be found only in that Church which has Christ as 
its founder and which outrivals all other existing sects. 
If, then, in its origin and in its authority this Church 
comes from God, whenever it speaks to us in His 
name, it is God Himself who guarantees its teaching 
and ratifies the same by His own divine authority. 

This teaching, moreover, is founded upon an un- 
broken tradition dating from the very beginning of 
Christianity. The Church itself was already existing 
at the time when the books of the New Testament 
first appeared. It was the Church that became their 
custodian; it was the Church that first knew of the 
circumstances of their origin ; it was the Church that 
learned their divine authority and human value 
from Christ's apostles and from the Holy Spirit who 
had inspired them to write; it was within the fold of 
the Church, as we find, that there existed from the 
earliest days that traditional belief which, at a later 
period, it was to define as a dogma of faith. 

Thus, towards 150 A. D., the Gospels, or Memoirs 
of the Apostles, as also the Writings of the Prophets 



INTRODUCTION 5 

were read in the assemblies of the early Christians. 
" On the day called Sunday," writes S. Justin, " all 
who live in cities or in the country gather together to 
one place, and the Memoirs of the Apostles, or the 
Writings of the Prophets are read, as long as time 
permits." ^ 

So too, in the Epistle ascribed to S. Barnabas, 
written about 100 A. D., we read : " Let us beware 
lest we be found (fulfilling that saying), as it is 
written : * Many are called, but few are chosen '," 
where the text of S. Matthew's gospel c. xx. 16, and 
c. xxii. 14, is cited as Scripture. - 

The Church, therefore, is the guarantor of our faith 
in the inspired character of the gospels. But, even 
aside from such an assured criterion, although in view 
of it, we can form of these sacred writings a judgment 
at once scientific and rational. That is, humanly 
speaking, we can investigate their origin, verify their 
content, and account for the fact of their historical im- 
portance. We will, accordingly, proceed to give a 
summary of the conclusions on this point as found in 
the writings of contemporary critics. 

Early Christian Testimony. — Of the existing 
manuscript copies of the gospels, the oldest date from 
300-400 A. D. Papyrus instead of parchment had un- 
til then been generally used for copying the sacred 
text; but its durability was so slight, that even of the 
many manuscripts of profane literature that were 
written prior to this period, there were few that es- 
caped the ravages of time. 

The numerous citations of the sacred text, how- 
ever, as found in the works of ecclesiastical writers, 
and the versions which had already been published, 
assure us of the existence as also of the content of the 
gospels during this epoch. In surveying the still exist- 

1 Justin, First Apology, n. 67. 

^ Bgrnabas, Epistle of, c iv, n, 14; cf. Mt. xx. 16; xxii. 14. 



6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ing series of documents of the first three centuries, 
we can easily follow, as it were step by step, the path 
of our sacred writings until at last we reach the apos- 
tolic age itself. 

About 200 A. D., or at the beginning of the third 
and during the last quarter of the second century, that 
is, about a century after the death of the apostles, 
numerous and interesting testimonies are particularly 
noticeable. 

At this epoch, the gospels are in general use. 
Throughout the Roman Empire, then encircling the 
Mediterranean sea, churches are founded and many 
are already flourishing. Everywhere the gospels are 
known and employed. In Syria, about 170 A. D., 
Tatian compiles his Diatessaron ; in Egypt, from 190- 
203 A. D., Clement of Alexandria edits his Stromata, 
or " Miscellanies," as also his Hypotyposes, or 
*' Sketches " ; in northern Africa, Tertullian of Carth- 
age, from 190-220 A. D., writes against various here- 
tics ; in Gaul, S. Irenaeus, between 179-180 A. D., pub- 
lishes his great Treatise Against Heresies; while at 
Rome itself, during the years 175-190 A. D., there ap- 
pears an oflicial list of the New Testament scriptures 
which is known as the " Muratorian Canon." 

What these various witnesses attest, therefore, is 
not only that the four canonical gospels were extant 
and known everywhere at that epoch, but also that 
they were in universal and constant use. They had 
become so much in demand that, for the convenience 
of the faithful at Edessa, Tatian had already pub- 
lished in Syriac a kind of gospel harmony, called the 
Diatessaron, or gospel formed out of the four. At 
this time also, in the Muratorian Canon the four gos- 
pels are enumerated among the scriptures which were 
read officially in the Church of the West. The ex- 
tant text of this document, found in an eighth century 
Codex, is mutilated at the beginning and perhaps at 
the end; and although the part preserved mentions 



INTRODUCTION y 

only the gospels according to SS. Luke and John, these 
are nevertheless given as the third and the fourth. 

Greek authors, also, like S. Irenaeus, and Latin 
writers like Tertullian, strew their works with Gospel 
citations ; so much so that, with the help of such docu- 
ments, we might fairly reconstruct the New Testa- 
ment entire. TertulHan himself had, at this period, 
been enabled to employ, as we learn from his work on 
Monogamy and from that Against Praxeas, a Latin 
version of the gospels w^hich had been published dur- 
ing the second century and was commonly used 
throughout the Church in northern Africa.^ 

A further fact to which these witnesses bear testi- 
mony is that apostolic tradition warranted the uni- 
versal belief in the four gospels, and only these; and 
so firm, so public, so confident is this persuasion that 
it was alleged as an unanswerable argument against 
those heretics who had altered the faith. 

As Origen remarks in his First Homily on S. Luke, 
" The Church has four gospels ; while the heresies 
have them in great numbers. . . Of all these writings, 
we approve nothing but what the Church approves, — 
that only four gospels are to be admitted." ^ 

While Clement of Alexandria in his Stromata, thus 
retorts to a Gnostic who had alleged some text from 
an apochryphal gospel : " This saying is not read in 
the four gospels which tradition has handed down to 
us, but in that of the Egyptians." ^ 

Tertullian and S. Irenaeus also writing Against 
Marcion and Against Heresies point to the fact that 
they enjoy the traditional possession of the four gos- 
pels when engaged in arguing with the heretics of 
their day.* 

1 Tertull, On Monogamy, c. xi ; Against Praxeas, c. v. 

2 Origen, Homily on S. Luke, n. i. 

3 Clem. Alex., Stromata, Bk. Ill, c. xiii. 

* Tertull., Against Marcion, Bk. V, c. v; S. Irenaeus, Against 
Heresies, Bk. Ill, c. xi, n. 7-9. 



8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Nor, lastly, is this tradition, thus attested within a 
century after the apostolic age, content to offer the 
four gospels as a precious legacy left to the Christians 
by their fathers in the faith : it also most expressly at- 
tests their apostolic origin. At Alexandria, as at 
Carthage ; at Lyons, as at Rome, it is universally be- 
lieved that the four gospels were composed by the 
two apostles, SS. Matthew and John, and by the two 
disciples, SS. Mark and Luke. 

On this point, Clement of Alexandria, in his 
Sketches, gives the tradition of his predecessors in the 
Catechetical School of that city, and which Eusebius 
thus records : " Clement has set down a tradition, 
which he had received from the Elders before him, 
in regard to the order of the Gospels, to the following 
effect : He says that the Gospels containing the genea- 
logies were written first, and that the Gospel accord- 
ing to Mark was composed in the following circum- 
stances: Peter, having preached the word publicly at 
Rome, and by the Spirit proclaimed the gospel, those 
"who were present, who were numerous, entreated 
Mark, inasmuch as he had attended him from an early 
period, and remembered what had been said, to write 
down what had been spoken. On his composing the 
Gospel, he handed it to those who had made the re- 
quest to him; which, coming to Peter's knowledge, he 
neither hindered nor encouraged. But John, the last 
of all, seeing that what was corporeal was set forth 
in the gospels, on the entreaty of his intimate friends, 
and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual 
gospel." ^ 

A Hke testimony is given by Tertullian, in his work 
Against Marcion, in behalf of the Church in northern 
Africa. " We lay it down as our first position," he 
writes, " that the evangelical Testament has apostles 
for its authors, to whom was assigned, by the Lord 

1 Clem. Alex., Hypotyposes: Euseb. Ch. Hist., Bk. VI, c. 
xiv. 



INTRODUCTION 9 

Himself, this office of publishing the gospel. If, 
however, there are apostolic men also, associated 
in the authorship, yet they did not write alone, 
but with the apostles and after the apostles ; be- 
cause the preaching of disciples might be open to the 
suspicion of an affectation of glory, if there did not 
accompany it the authority of the masters, which 
means that of Christ, who made the apostles their 
masters. Of the apostles, therefore, John and Mat- 
thew first instill the faith into us, whilst the apostolic 
men, Luke and Mark, renew it afterwards." ^ 

The tradition which prevailed at Rome at this 
period is presented in the Aluratorian Canon, of which 
the first lines refer to S. Matthew and an unfinished 
sentence undoubtedly to S. Mark. It also refers to 
the Gospel according to Luke as being the third of the 
Gospels. It alludes to him as the physician who, after 
the Ascension of Christ, acted as S. Paul's companion 
on his voyages ; who wrote in his own name, in 
methodical fashion ; who, although he did not see the 
Lord in the flesh, nevertheless, from what he could 
learn, began his account with the birth of John the 
Baptist. To the Gospel according to S. John, it thus 
refers : " Of the fourth of the gospels, John, one of 
the disciples ... to his fellow disciples and bishops, 
exhorting him, he said : ' Fast with me for three days 
from to-day ; and whatsoever shall have been revealed 
to each, let us relate it to one another. On the same 
night, it was revealed to Andrew, (one) of the 
apostles, that, all reviewing, John should write down 
all things in his own name.' " ^ 

That the same tradition was current among the 
Gauls, we find from the following explicit testimony 
of S. Irenaeus in his work Against Heresies: 

1 Tertull., Against Marcion, Bk. IV, c. ii. 

2 Canon of Muratori; cf. Westcott, The Canon of the N. 
T. Preuschen, Analecta, p. 129; Zahn, Gesch. des N. T. 
Kanons, vol. ii, p. 139. 



lo CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

" Matthew also issued a written gospel among the 
Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul 
were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of 
the Church. After their departure (demise), Mark, 
the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand 
down to us in writing what had been preached by 
Peter. Luke, also, the companion of Paul, recorded 
in a book the gospel preached by him. Afterwards, 
John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned 
upon His breast, did himself publish a gospel during 
his residence at Ephesus in Asia." ^ 

The significance of the foregoing facts supplied by 
such historical witnesses is easily perceived. First 
of all, the fact that our Gospels are being universally 
and constantly used, as early as the end of the second 
and the beginning of the third century, throughout 
the most distant and most diverse sections of the 
Church, forces upon us the conclusion that these writ- 
ings were already very ancient. Now, at this stage 
of our study, we are at most no more than a century 
from the apostolic age itself. We are, therefore, 
obliged to date the gospels at a period very near to 
that epoch, if not to the very days of the apostles. 

On the other hand, the then accepted belief in the 
apostolic origin and transmission of the gospels has all 
the features of a primitive and well-founded tradition. 
Not only is it a universal conviction established in all 
parts of the Church; a public belief, so firm that it is 
available against heretics as an irrefutable argument; 
but it is moreover a tradition of a well-defined charac- 
ter, and historically evident, its course being traceable 
to the very beginnings of Christianity. Each Church, 
in fact, keeps alive the memories of its teachers in the 
faith ; it knows by what channels the doctrine of 
Christ has reached it, by what succession its Bishops 
are allied with the Saviour. 

1 S. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Bk. Ill, c. i, n. i. 



INTRODUCTION II 

Naught, indeed, is better established than the suc- 
cession of Roman Pontiffs and the stages of tradition 
in the Church at Rome. In his Sketches, Clement of 
Alexandria refers to his master Pantaenus, an imme- 
diate disciple of those presbyters who had heard the 
apostles. While, in Gaul, S. Irenaeus appeals to the 
testimony of those Elders whom he had known in Asia, 
and whom his contemporaries and such heretics as 
Florinus had also known. He also appeals to Polycarp, 
Bishop of Smyrna, Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, and 
other Asiatic presbyters whom John the Apostle had 
known as his own disciples and direct recipients of his 
teachings.^ 

A tradition, therefore, so universal, so precise, and 
prevailing within only a century of its presumed 
origin; a tradition which, even at that time, was easily 
verifiable by comparing together the recollections of 
the divers Churches, — these memories in turn being 
traceable to their primary source, — can be founded 
only upon real facts. 

Thus, tradition itself, as evidenced at the end of 
the second century, suffices to establish the apostolic 
origin of our gospels. But this very tradition obtains 
a valuable confirmation from the more ancient wit- 
nesses extending from the end of the second century 
to the end of the first. Small in number and brief 
enough are the documents of this primitive period. 
Written mostly for special occasions, they possess a 
definite character ; so that their authors might have had 
little reason to cite our gospels. 

Nor, again, should it be forgotten that, at an epoch 
w^hen those were still living who had known the apos- 
tles or their disciples, oral tradition remained pre- 
dominant, and that people felt less need to appeal to 
Scripture itself than they would have done otherwise. 

1 Clem. Alex., Hypotyposes: Euseb. Ch. Hist., Bk. VI, c. 
xiii. 



12 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Nevertheless, in view of this fact, the fully genuine 
testimony furnished by these writings is only the more 
significant. 

About the middle of the second century, we meet 
with two writers whose testimony on this matter is 
very valuable. The one, S. Justin, represents not only 
Palestine, his native land, and Asia Minor where he 
became a convert to the faith, but also Rome itself, 
where he directed a Catechetical School. The other, 
Papias, was Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, Asia 
Minor. As noted above, in his Two Apologies for 
Christianity, S. Justin frequently mentions the gos- 
pels which he styles the " Memoirs of the Apostles/' 
and not only states that they were read in the as- 
semblies of the faithful on each Sunday, but quotes 
them abundantly. Papias, in turn, in his '' Explana- 
tions of the Sayings of the Lord," apparently pub- 
lished about 130 A. D., shows that he was well ac- 
quainted with the gospels and even produces the tradi- 
tion concerning the origin of those according to SS. 
Matthew and Mark. 

As Papias tells us : " The presbyter said this : * Mark 
having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down 
accurately whatever he remem.bered. It was not, 
however, in exact order that he related the sayings or 
deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor 
accompanied Him. But, afterwards, as I said, he 
accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instruc- 
tions to the necessities (of his hearers), but with no 
intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's 
sayings. Wherefore, Mark made no mistake in thus 
writing some things as he remembered them. For, of 
one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything 
he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into 
the statements. . . . Matthew put together the oracles 
(of the Lord) in the Hebrew language, and each one 
interpreted them as best he could.' " ^ 

^Papias; Euseb. Ch, Hist., Bk. Ill, c. xxjcijc. 



INTRODUCTION 13 

About the same time, Celsus, a pagan author, 
takes the gospel texts as the basis of his objections 
against the Christians, while the heretics Marcion, 
Basilides, and Valentinus endeavor to support their 
erroneous teachings by the writings of S. Luke or of 
S. John. 

At the very beginning of the second century and 
towards the close of the first, several documents con- 
tain authentic citations of the gospels and numerous 
allusions to our sacred texts. Among these we 
notice the following : the Epistle ascribed to S. Barna- 
bas, which Harnack dates at 130-131, and Funk at 
96-98; the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, dated at 
130-160 by Harnack, at 80-90 by Funk, and shortly be- 
fore 80 by Batiffol; the Epistle of S. Polycarp, the 
Bishop of Smyrna, written about 98-117, or after the 
death of S. Ignatius of Antioch ; the Seven Epistles of 
S. Ignatius, who died during Trajan's reign, and dated 
by Harnack at 110-117, and by Funk at 107; and 
lastly the Epistle of S. Clement of Rome, which 
Harnack assigns to 93-95, and Funk to 9^-97 A. D.^ 

Thus it is that by the aid of witnesses ranging from 
the end of the second century to the end of the first, 
we can follow the path of our gospels, and trace the 
stages of their progressive diffusion. These primitive 
witnesses, it will be granted, are singularly clear and 
become fully significant in the light of that firm and 
universal tradition which we have witnessed in so 
many documents belonging to the close of the second 
century. 

Internal Evidence. —Historically considered, there- 
fore, the gospels are productions of the early days of 

1 Harnack, Die Chron. der Altchrist. Lift., 1897, Pt. II, vol. 
i, pp. 251-255, 381-406, 410-438; Funk, Patres Apost., 2d ed., 
1901, vol. i, pp. 25, 38, 43 ; Bardenhewer, Les Peres de I'Eglise, 
Fr. ed., 1898, vol. i, pp. 60-62, 69; Batififol, Anc. Lift. Chre- 
tiennes: La Litt. Grecqiie, 1897, pp. 12, 72; Allard, Hist, des 
Persec, 1885, vol. i, p. 179. 



14 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Christianity, or more exactly, of the apostolic age ; and 
if we wish to ascertain the value of the external testi- 
mony thus far supplied, we may do so by a survey of 
the internal characteristics of these sacred writings. 
We may first of all assume as a principle that a work 
ascribed to a given author, if it is to be considered as 
his, must contain nothing unsuitable, either as re- 
gards himself, or the country and period in which he 
flourished. To apply this principle means that all in- 
formation about the person, country, and epoch of the 
writer that is possibly attainable by a minute analysis 
of his work, must be critically compared with the pecu- 
liarities exhibited by the character, country, and time 
of the presumed author as these have been otherwise 
ascertained. Such an inquiry is particularly easy in 
the case of a country and an epoch marked by very 
striking features and of a work wherein, owing to its 
special literary form, the characteristics of the writer's 
country and time must needs be faithfully mirrored in 
all their intricate variety. Now, such are precisely 
the land of Palestine and the period of the beginnings 
of Christianity ; such are also our Gospels : on the 
one hand, the most extraordinary, the most striking, 
the most specific peculiarities ; on the other hand, 
anecdotal writings, in which the most minute circum- 
stances, the most complicated situations, the most par- 
ticular customs and manners are faithfully recorded. 
The linguistic features of the gospels, for instance, 
are very noticeable. Masters in the Science of Lan- 
guage, popularly known as philologists, have examined 
the gospel texts very carefully, analyzed every phrase, 
ascertained every construction, classified every word, 
and after a comparative study of the lexicons and 
grammars of contemporary documents, have edited 
such works in the interests of gospel study. Such 
labors lead ta the inevitable conclusion that, even 
under their Greek form, the lexicography and gram- 
mar of the gospels are essentially Semitic. For, we 



INTRODUCTION 



15 



find such words as corbona, ephpheta, talitha cumi, 
Eloi, belonging to the Aramaic, or common language 
spoken in Christ's time, as also numerous expressions 
intelligible only by having recourse to the Hebrew or 
the Aramaic tongue, and lastly a habitual phrase- 
formation which bears the stamp of Semitic genius. 
So that, viewed in the light of philology, the gospels 
were unquestionably written by Christians who were 
familiar with the Jewish language. We are thus led 
back to the very cradle of our faith, to that epoch of 
early Christianity when, from the bosom of the Syna- 
gogue the new religion came forth into the world. 

Again, the Christians of this epoch, who were ori- 
ginally Jews by birth, are evidently natives of Pales- 
tine. They describe the places where the Saviour's 
hfe was spent; and so accurate is this description, and 
its exactness is nowadays fully recognized, that it must 
come from people who had long dwelt in Palestine and 
who, moreover, knew every feature of the country. 
To describe so graphically the land of Galilee, the Lake 
of Genesereth with the busy scenes along its shores, 
the peculiar outlines of such hamlets as Nazareth, the 
respective distances of different cities, the environs and 
monuments of Jerusalem, all this implies that the writ- 
ers had passed their life in the places where Christ 
once lived. 

But, at which period of its history did our writers 
know Palestine? We can determine this very point 
from a providential circumstance, namely, the Fall of 
Jerusalem. It was in 70 A. D. soon after Jesus' death 
that the Jews witnessed this great disaster which 
brought about the overthrow of Israel and the es- 
tablishment of an entirely new order of things in 
Palestine. 

Of the conditions of life in Palestine prior to this 
epoch,we learn from numerous sources, notably the writ- 
ings of Josephus, the Annals of the Latin Historians, 
Inscriptions, Medals, and the Hke monuments of his- 



l6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

tory. It was a world all to itself, — unique in politics, 
in social life, and in religion. Judea, for instance, 
first ruled by King Archaelaus, son of Herod the 
Great, was later governed by a Roman Procurator 
in dependence upon the Imperial Legate in Syria, 
while Galilee, in its turn, was under the sway of Herod 
Antipas, the vassal Tetrarch of Rome and his suc- 
cessors. That the Roman authorities allowed a goodly 
share of self-government to the local authorities is 
plain enough ; since the Sanhedrin, for instance, 
shared the judiciary power. Assuredly, it is a strangely 
complicated situation which results from the relations 
of the two co-existing powers, the vassal and the suze- 
rain : the very fusion of foreign civilization with the 
hereditary customs of the Jewish nation is portrayed 
with the utmost detail. Jerusalem, indeed, seems like 
an individual : we behold its numberless national and re- 
ligious monuments, its magnificent Temple which was 
rebuilt by Herod the Great, its mighty High Priests, 
its vying castes of Sadducees, Pharisees, and Scribes, 
its deeply religious life within the sacred precincts of 
the Temple.^ 

But lo, in 70 A. D., this fair Palestinian world, so 
minutely described, suddenly disappeared. Palestine 
is ravaged by the Roman armies; its populous cities 
are laid waste, and, after a long siege, Jerusalem is 
burned to the ground, its monuments lie in ruins, its 
Temple and the ritual life thereof become but a 
memory. 

The gospels, however, as is noteworthy, do not de- 
scribe life in Palestine as it was experienced after that 
calamity but rather before its occurrence. What they 
actually reveal is the political, social and religious con- 
ditions prevalent during the Saviour's day and which 
have been brought into newer light by modern critic- 

J- Schiirer, Gesch. des Jud. Volkes, 3rd ed., 1898, vol. ii, pp. 
313, 388. 



INTRODUCTION ly 

ism. We readily understand the diplomatic relations 
that were carried on between the Roman and the Jew- 
ish authorities, the conflict that waged between the 
judicial claims of the Sanhedrin and those of the 
Roman Procurator. We behold the Pharisees, Sad- 
ducees and Scribes moving, in life-like pictures, 
around the person of Jesus. Jerusalem appears to us 
in the Gospels with all its monuments still standing, its 
High Priests revered, its devotional life in full vigor. 

" In the Synoptists," observes Loisy, *' the Jewish 
factions are clearly distinguished. . . . The activity 
of the different groups is portrayed and history 
appears, in their narratives, in all its manifold 
variety." ^ Only contemporaries, only those who 
had lived in this Palestinian world, who had dwelt 
amongst its people and witnessed its events could 
have thus described such a state of affairs. After 
Jerusalem's fall, to which the episodes of the 
French Revolution bear no comparison, an entire 
restoration of the former glory was impossible. 
The ancients had no genius for archeology. In 
the judgment of modern criticism, with all its 
facilities and manifold resources in this branch of 
science, they were wholly unfitted for such recon- 
structive efforts. If, however, we remember that this 
portrayal is by no means intentional, that it results 
from various circumstances narrated without due re- 
gard to order or plan, although . to the extent de- 
manded by the events, its accuracy must prove that it 
can be only the work of contemporaries, of Jews who 
inhabited Palestine prior to the Fall of the Holy City. 

Indeed, the character of the gospel accounts shows 
that their authors were eye-witnesses who tell what 
they saw and heard most faithfully and exactly. The 
Saviour's journeyings to and fro, the progressive 
stages in His public life, the changing character of 

1 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., 1903, p. 201. 
2. 



l8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

public opinion, — all is presented with precision, with 
due moderation, with admirable candor and simplicity. 
Such a result is attained not by commentaries or by 
personal observations on the part of the various au- 
thors ; for these notice but briefly the result of Jesus' 
deeds, the impression made by His discourses and 
miracles, or the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies. 
Nay rather, the fact itself is stated in all its native 
charm. How many details seem unlikely unless it be 
that they are due to eye-witnesses. How many fea- 
tures are possible only if based upon reality. Truly 
we behold a vivid photograph of places, persons, and 
things that are wholly evangelical. Everywhere we 
find a naturalness, an accuracy of tone, a due regard 
for circumstances. So that, we exclaim instinctively: 
No, this is not the work of inventive romancers, of 
enthusiasts whom a deceiving mirage has filled with 
illusions ; no, it is surely the recollection of witnesses 
simply and calmly reproduced by faithful chroniclers ! 

Should we then conclude that these eye-witnesses 
were the final editors of the Gospels? The foregoing 
remarks may well agree with another theory, which is 
logical enough since it is partly verified by tradition; 
for, as we have seen, of the four Evangelists whose 
names have come down to us, only two could have been 
the immediate witnesses of the Saviour. But as these 
writings so faithfully reproduce the memories of genu- 
ine witnesses, we are led to suppose that the editors, 
if not eye-witnesses themselves, lived very near the 
period of such witnesses and were very likely in direct 
relation with them. Tradition, as we know, regards 
S. Matthew, S. Mark, S. Luke, and S. John as the au- 
thors of the four gospels ; and the internal features of 
these documents seem to agree exactly with what we 
certainly know of their respective authors. 

The first gospel, for instance, which insists upon 
the relation between the Gospel to the Law, and bases 
Jesus' Messiahship upon the prophecies, was plainly 



INTRODUCTION I9 

written for the use of the early Jewish converts to 
Christianity. This agrees with the testimony of the 
oldest tradition ; for, S. Irenaeus writes : '* Matthew 
also issued a written gospel among the Hebrews in 
their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preach- 
ing at Rome and laying the foundations of the 
Church." ^ 

The second gospel, in its turn, was apparently 
written for the advantage of Gentiles, especially of the 
Romans. Hence its explanation of such Jewish cus- 
toms as the ablutions and the purifications of the 
Pharisees, as though to instruct persons ignorant of 
such usages. In many texts, too, it employs Latin 
terms ; thus it mentions the equivalent in Roman 
money of the two coins dropped by the poor widow 
into the poor-box in the Temple. All this accords 
with the traditional testimony that S. Mark, the dis- 
ciple of S. Peter, composed his gospel for the faith- 
ful at Rome. This gospel, moreover, is assigned to 
a disciple, and not to S. Peter himself; and this fact 
is most likely in keeping with the truth. 

The third gospel also was plainly composed for the 
benefit of the Gentiles. Its author, a disciple of 
S. Paul, and imbued with his teaching on the ex- 
tension of salvation to all mankind, also possessed his 
tradition about the Saviour's final days on earth. That 
the same writer wrote the Book of Acts is shown by 
a comparison of the Prologues and the literary fea- 
tures of the third gospel and the Book of Acts itself ; 
and this fact also is quite in accord with what tradition 
teaches us about S. Luke. 

Lastly, the fourth gospel is held to be the work of 
an apostle, of an apostle well-beloved by Jesus. Its 
author apparently survived the other members of the 
apostolic college, and also wrote the Apocalypse, and 
certainly exerted a sovereign influence over the 

^ S. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Bk III, c. i, n. i. 



:20 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Churches in Asia Minor. All these facts fully agree 
with the most authoritative tradition concerning S. 
John, the apostle. 

Harnack says that, " he is now reconciled to that 
opinion — regarded though it be as a heresy by most 
critics — which assigns to the same author both the 
Apocalypse and this Gospel." ^ 

While Reynolds, after making a minute comparison 
of these two writings, concludes that '' it is very likely 
that the two documents come from the same author." ^ 

The internal features of the gospels, therefore, seem 
to confirm in all points the external testimony afforded 
by primitive tradition, namely that the four gospels 
are the production of two apostles and of two dis- 
ciples, S. Matthew, S. Mark, S. Luke, and S. John. 

Modern Criticism. — To what extent, we may ask, 
are the above conclusions accepted by modern critics? 
Many years ago Baur, the leader of the Tiibingen 
school, dated the first gospel at 130-134 A. D. ; the 
second and third at 150, and the fourth at 160-180. 
The numerous efforts made in this field since then, 
have gradually brought the conclusions of criticism 
nearer to the traditional views. 

It may be truly asserted that Protestant and Ration- 
alistic critics are now unanimous in placing the com- 
position of the first three gospels in the latter half of 
the first century, and of the fourth gospel in the early 
part of the second century. In general, such critics 
also accept the authorship of the second and third gos- 
pels by the disciples SS. Mark and Luke; but deny 
that, in their actual form, the first and fourth gospels 
were written by S. Matthew and S. John. 

It is claimed by modern critics that, as regards 
the order of composition, the first of the series is 
S. Mark's gospel, which is the authentic work of 

1 Harnack, Die Chron., 1897, Pt. II, vol. i, p. 675, n. i. 

2 Reynolds, art.: John, Gospel of, H. D., p. 709. 



INTRODUCTION 21 

S. Peter's disciple and edited about 70 A. D. ; that 
also, about 80 K. D., the third gospel was composed 
probably by S. Luke, the disciple of S. Paul ; that, 
moreover, towards the same period, there appeared 
S. Matthew's gospel, which was written by one of 
that apostle's followers at a later epoch; and that, 
lastly, during the first ten or twenty years of the 
second century, the fourth gospel was written by an 
unknown writer, probably a disciple of the apostle 
S. John. 

The various dates assigned by leading critics with 
reference to the composition of the gospels are as fol- 
lows: Renan, Mk. 76, Mt. 84, Lk. 94, Jo. 125 A. D. 
H. Holtzmann, Mk. 68, Mt. Gy, Lk. 70-100, Jo. 100- 
133 A. D. B. Weiss, Mk. 69, Mt. 70, Lk. 80, Jo. 95 
A. D. Jiilicher, Mk. 70-100, Mt. 81-96, Lk. 80-120, 
Jo. 80-100 A. D. Harnack, Mk. 65-70, ]\It. 70-85, Lk. 
78-93, Jo. 80-100 A. D. Zahn, Mt. (Aramaic text) 
62, Mt. (Greek text) 85, Mk. 64, Lk. 75, Jo. 90-100 
A. D. Schmiedel, Mk. 80, Mt. 90, Lk. loo-iio, Jo. 
140 A. D. Stanton and Reynolds, Mk. 69, Mt. 70, Lk. 
70-80, Jo. before 100 A. D. Loisy, Mk. 70, Mt. and 
Lk. 80, Jo. 100 A. D. Minocchi, I\Ik. Mt. and Lk. 
65-90, Jo. 95-100 A. D. Batiffol, Mk. 60, Mt. 65-70, 
Lk. 65, Jo. 95 A. D.^ 

That the second gospel is S. Mark's authentic work, 
is admitted by all the prominent critics except 
Schmiedel and Loisy. At first, Loisy favored its full 
authenticity, but later maintained that it was at most 

1 Renan, Life of Jesus; The Gospels; Holtzmann, H., Ein- 
leit., 1885, 3rd ed., 1892 ; Weiss, B., Lehrh. der Einleit., 3rd ed., 
1897; Jiilicher, Introduction to the New Test., 1887; Har- 
nack, Die Chron., Pt. H, Vol. i, 1897; Jahn, Einleit., vol. ii, 
1899 ; Schmiedel, arts. : Gospels, and John, Son of Zebedee, 
E. B. ; Stanton, art. : Gospels, H. D. ; Reynolds, art. : John, 
Gospel of, H. D. ; Loisy, Les Evang. Synop., 1893 ; Chron. 
Bihl. in Rev. d'Hist. et de Lit. Rel., 1896-1904; Autour D'Un 
Petit Livre, 1903, p. y6; Le Quat. Evang., 1903; Minocchi, 
// Nuov. Test.: I Vangeli, 1900, 



22 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

based upon a collection of S. Peter's traditions edited 
by S. Mark himself/ 

The authenticity of the third gospel is either 
doubted or denied by H. Holtzmann, Jiilicher, and 
Schmiedel; but in fact this gospel is certainly by the 
same author as the Book of Acts. For in the latter 
work, the section known as the Journal of Voyage 
where the narrator, writing in the first person plural, 
thus forming what are called the '' We-passages," or 
Wirstuckc, as in c. xvi. 10-17; c. xx. 5-15 ; c. xxi. 1-18; 
c. xxvii. I — c. xxviii. 16, speaks like one who had wit- 
nessed the events recorded, is no doubt from the pen of 
a companion of S. Paul, and apparently this was S. 
Luke himself. H. Holtzmann, Schmiedel, and Ji.ilicher, 
however, claim that these particular passages are only 
an earlier document utilized by the final editor of the 
Book "of Acts, and that, hence, we must distinguish 
between S. Luke and this editor whom these critics 
also claim was the final editor of the third gospel 
itself ! 

There are proofs available, however, to show that 
the final editor of the third gospel and the original 
author of the aforenamed passages are identical, while 
it is also clear that S. Paul's companion is mentioned 
as much in the course of the book as in this particular 
section. That S. Luke was really the author both of 
the Acts of the Apostles and of the Third Gospel is 
maintained by Renan, Blass, Zahn, Plummer, Rackam, 
Headlam, and Stanton, not to mention such Catholic 
scholars as Knabenbauer.- 

The results of criticism, therefore, tend to harmon- 

1 Loisy, Les Evang. Synop., 1893, pp. 4, 6; Chron. BibL, 
1889, p. 467; 1904, p. 82. 

2 Blass, Acta Apostolorum, 1895; Zahn, Einleit. 1899, vol. 
ii ; Plummer, Com., on S. Luke, 3rd ed., 1900; Rackam, The 
Acts of the Apostles, 1901 ; Headlam, art.: Acts of the 
Apostles, H. D. ; Stanton, art. : Gospels, H. D. ; Knabenbauer, 
Com. in Act. Apostolorum, 1899. 



INTRODUCTION 23 

ize with the traditional positions hitherto received. 
Since S. Irenaeus' day, in fact, the Church has tradi- 
tionally placed the composition of the first three gos- 
pels between 50-70 A. D., and of the fourth gospel at 
80-100 A. D. And these dates are the ones most gen- 
erally accepted by Catholic critics of the present time, 
notably by Bacuez, Vigouroux, Cornely, and Batiffol. 
The only points, it may be noted, on which modern 
criticism tends to discard the Church tradition to a 
great extent are those bearing upon the composition of 
the first gospel by the apostle S. Matthew and of the 
fourth gospel by the apostle S. John.^ 

The theory relative to S. John's gospel is connected 
with a problem that is very complex and even now 
very far from solution, namely, that of the relation of 
the fourth gospel with the other three as regards the 
narration of facts and the reproduction of discourses. 
As the study of this problem requires a special volume, 
we will not enter upon it in this work ; so that we will 
here leave aside the testimony of the fourth gospel 
and, to meet the actual requirements of criticism, we 
shall confine ourselves to the evidences supplied by the 
first three gospels. 

With regard, then, to the theory of the authorship 
of S. Matthew's gospel, it is itself partly dependent 
upon a problem which is also far from being solved, 
namely that of the literary resemblances noticeable in 
the first three gospels. These writings are arranged 
upon a uniform plan; they include the same portion 
of Jesus' ministry in GaUlee, and, for the most part, 
relate the same facts and the same discourses ; so that 
they can be presented in three parallel lines, thus allow- 
ing the triple biographical account to appear under 
one and the same view. Hence, the name, synoptic, 

^ Bacuez and Vigouroux, Manuel Bihlique, vol. iii, loth ed., 
1900; Cornely, lutroductio, vol. iii, 1886; Batiffol, Six Legons, 
4th ed., 1897; Jesus et rHistoire, 2d ed., 1904. 



24 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

from the Greek word ' synopsis ', or a survey of 
several things at one glance. 

How then can we account for these striking simi- 
larities, as also indeed the notable divergences in these 
gospels, for, in fact, these very features do not allow 
us to suppose for a moment that these writings were 
merely based one upon the other? This difficulty is 
called the Synoi:tic problem, and so complex is its 
character that it has given rise to all kinds of theories. 

The theory of most contemporary critics may be 
thus stated : S. Mark's gospel is the shortest ; it omits 
the narratives of the Infancy of Christ, and seems to 
reproduce more exactly the original form of the 
apostles' system of catechetical instruction, as we 
witness it in the Book of Acts. Hence it must have 
been prior to S. Matthew's gospel which implies an 
effort of later reflexion, as also to S. Luke's gospel 
which is certainly the work of a historian. S. Mark's 
gospel, which is nearly all narrative, served as the 
basis of the other two. The author of S. Matthew's 
gospel borrowed the narrative portions from the nar- 
ration in S. Mark's gospel, completing his work by 
means of particular sources, and, in the course of the 
recital, inserting the discourses which he had bor- 
rowed from already existing collections. Of the lat- 
ter, the principal one was originally written in Ara- 
maic, and had been later translated into Greek. It is 
this Greek translation, entitled the Sayings of the 
Lord, which Papias mentions as the work of the 
apostle Matthew, and, in some measure, this testimony 
would warrant the title given to the first gospel from 
the earliest Christian times. As regards S. Luke's 
gospel, its narrative portion depends upon S. Mark, 
and its discourses, upon a primitive collection, per- 
haps the same whence the Greek form of S. Matthew's 
discourses were drawn ; while its author completed 
these two principal sources by the aid of particular 



INTRODUCTION 25 

documents, the whole series being finally blended to- 
gether after the method of a true historian.^ 

Thus would modern critics solve the synoptic prob- 
lem ; but, after all, it remains simply a theory, and one 
against which there are two serious difficulties. That 
is, in the light of external criticism, it apparently dif- 
fers from the earliest testimony of tradition. The 
latter always has placed S. Matthew's gospel as the 
first of the series, and held that it was composed, as 
indeed the very features of the gospel itself serve to 
show, for the use of converted Jews, and that it is the 
authentic work of that apostle. Again, from the 
view-point of internal criticism, this theory cannot ex- 
plam satisfactorily the notable divergences in the 
Synoptic gospels both as regards the independent ele- 
ments and the parts common to each writing. The 
theory of the two Sources, Mark and the Logia, how- 
ever, has been adopted by Loisy and Minocchi, as 
also by Batiirol and Lagrange. 2 

Is it not more likely, indeed, that the Synoptic gos- 
pels are based upon a certain number of documents 
more or less extensive and more or less differently 
edited and forming a sort of Primitive Gospel like the 
ordinary Catechesis employed by the apostles and im- 
parted by them to the first Christian preachers? In 
this case, S. Matthew would have early adapted this 
Primitive Gospel to the needs of the Jewish converts 
and completed it with the help of his own recollections. 
While S. Mark would have accommodated it soon 
afterwards to the needs of the Church at Rome, and, 
although preserving it in its original form, still en- 
deavoring to make it harmonize with S. Peter's teach- 

1 Wernle, Die Synop. Frage, 1899 ; Wendt, The Teaching 
of Jesus, vol. i, 1892; Holtzmann, O., The Life of Jesus, 1904; 
Soltau, Unsere Evangelien, 1901 ; Hawkins, Horae Synop- 
ticae, 1899; Moffatt, J., The Historical New Testament, 1901. 

^ Loisy, op. cit.; Minocchi, op. cit.; Batiffol, op. cit.; La- 
grange, Jesus et la Critique des Evangiles; art. ; Bulletin d^ 
Litt, BccL, 1904, p. 19. 



26 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ing. S. Luke,* lastly, would have accepted this Primi- 
tive Gospel as the basis of his account, while also 
completing it from his personal sources of informa- 
tion, oral and written, and then arranging it in ac- 
cordance with the special purpose which he had in 
view. 

In any case, as is noteworthy, even had the first gos- 
pel been finally edited by a writer later than S. Mat- 
thew, and during S. Luke's time, nevertheless, owing 
to its origin, its value would equal that of the second 
and third gospels, which were written by disciples. It 
is also very remarkable that the theory of the Two 
Sources tends to maintain the real and close connection 
between the first gospel and its traditional author ; for 
its advocates claim that, at least to a notable extent, 
this gospel depends upon the authentic work of the 
apostle S. Matthew, that is, upon a collection of Dis- 
courses, or a truly Primitive Gospel, originally written 
in the Aramaic language. 

As for the gospel of S. Mark, it is significant that 
critics now recognize its dependence upon earlier 
sources just as they do in the case of the other Synop- 
tic gospels. Jiilicher and Wernle, for instance, admit 
such dependence in the apocalyptic discourse in c. 13, 
and Wendt in the series of specially grouped anecdotes 
in c. ii. I — c. iii. 6, and in c. xii. 13-37. 

B. Weiss says that while S. Mark's gospel serves 
as a source for those of S. Matthew and S. Luke, it is 
itself dependent upon S. Matthew's primitive work 
which was a collection of narratives as well as dis- 
courses. 

J. Weiss also thinks that, to a large extent, this 
Primitive Gospel forms the basis of all three Synoptic 
gospels.^ And Loisy, with scarcely a shade of differ- 
ence, declares himself strongly in favor of the same 



1 Weiss, J., Das Alt. Evang., 1903. 

2 Loisy, Le Second Evang.; art.: Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, 
p. 513; The Gospel and the Church, pp. 26, 27, 1908, 



INTRODUCTION 



27 



Von Weizsacker believes that the basis of the 
Synoptic gospels is a common source, which S. Mark 
has reproduced with greater fidelity, while S. Matthew 
and S. Luke, without depending upon our second gos- 
pel, freely used this common source by combining it 
with the Logia.^ 

Stanton thus summarizes the matter : " Was our 
Mark itself, as we have it, one of the original docu- 
ments into which the Synoptic gospels are to be 
analyzed? On the other hand, did Mark himself take 
a document, the same which was used in Mt. and Lk., 
and revise it, though much more slightly, — only add- 
ing to it traits here and there which he had derived 
from his close intercourse with S. Peter? It cannot be 
said that criticism has as yet even approximated to a 
decision on this point." ^ 

As regards the gospel of S. Matthew, some critics 
claim that they can harmonize the theory of the Two 
Sources with its entire authenticity. Thus, Zahn sup- 
poses that our first gospel in its Greek form is a mere 
translation, made about 85 A. D., from the original 
Aramaic text of S. Matthew's gospel which was 
written towards 62 A. D. ; so that, in this view, the 
translator was simply inspired to take his hterary 
model from the original Greek text of S. Mark's gos- 
pel which was composed about 64 A. D.^ 

In Roehrich's opinion, it was S. Matthew himself 
who, towards the close of his life, edited " the new 
edition, revised and corrected, of the gospel of 
S. Mark."* 

Godet ventures to suggest that the apostle S. 

1 Von Weizsacker, Untersuch. iiher die Evang. Gesch., 
1864, 2d ed., 1901. 

2 Stanton, art. : Gospels, H. D., p. 241. 

3 Zahn, op. cit. 

* Roehrich, La Camp, des Evang., 1897, p. 331. 



2S CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Matthew had confided to one of his disciples the task 
of completing the Logia.^ 

Most of those who accept the theory of the Two 
Sources really admit a partial authenticity for S. Mat- 
thew's gospel by the fact that they recognize the primi- 
tive document of the Logia as the genuine work of the 
apostle S. Matthew. " One would have scarcely hit 
upon the name of an apostle so little known as Mat- 
thew/' says Jiilicher, *' without definite cause. One 
would have been far more likely to ascribe it to Peter 
m view of the brilliant role assigned to him in xvi, 
1 8 and xvii, 24-27. All existing facts, including the 
interest shown by the author in Mt. ix, 9 and x, 3 are 
best explained upon the supposition that peculiar rela- 
tions existed between the gospel and Matthew, that 
the author actually used a collection of Logia made 
by Matthew as the foundation for his book, and that 
since he had not his own personal glory so much at 
heart as the influence of his gospel, he recommended 
this latter to his fellow-believers as a Greek version, 
made according to his ability, of the old Matthew." ^ 

Schmiedel supposes that if S. Matthew is not the 
author of the Logia directly employed by the Evan- 
gelist who wrote the first gospel, he is at least the 
compiler of a still older document on which depended 
the Logia in their final form.^ 

This view is also apparently adopted by Loisy in his 
work on the Synoptic Gospels, and in his Biblical 
Chronicle. While, in his essay Antour d'un Petit 
Livre, which followed his book on The Gospel and 
the Church, he is satisfied with stating that " if the col- 
lection of sayings was first edited by the apostle Mat- 
thew, it is certainly not the same apostle who combined 

1 Godet, Introd. au N. T., 1898, vol. ii, p. 321. 

2 Jiilicher, op. cit., pp. 306, 376 ; Stanton, op. cit., p. 242 ; 
Moffatt, op. cit., p. 270. 

s Schmiedel, op. cit., par. 149, col, 1891. 



INTRODUCTION 29 

the Discourses of the Lord with the account in Mark 
for the purpose of forming our first gospel." ^ 

A partial although less restricted authenticity in 
behalf of the first gospel is advanced by several Catho- 
lic critics who think that, while based upon S. Mark's 
gospel, it was really a translation from the original 
Aramaic text of S. Matthew. 

Calmes, for instance, says that the translator of the 
first gospel, while utilizing the gospel of S. Mark, as- 
similated its mode of expression as also many comple- 
mentary details, particular features, and even facts 
which were not found in the text of the original Ara- 
maic document.- 

And lastly, Lagrange bids us recognize that our 
gospel according to S. Matthew is more than a mere 
translation ; that it is a composition written with a 
certain freedom of manner as compared with its ori- 
ginal. Nor does he believe that internal criticism has 
proved that such changes affect the work substantially, 
and he thence concludes that it does not contradict 
the traditional view which considers the first gospel 
both as an inspired writing and as the work of the 
apostle S. Matthew.^ 

Historicity. — The first three gospels, even in the 
supposition that they are to be assigned to the second 
generation of Christians and that we may minimize 
the part played by their traditional authors in the 
work of editing, depend upon oral traditions as also 
upon written documents belonging to the first Chris- 
tian generation, to that very epoch when the Saviour's 
immediate witnesses were still living. 

This much is admitted by modern critics. Thus, 
among Catholic scholars, Batiffol dates the composi- 

1 Loisy, Autour, p. y6', Les Evang. Synop., 1893, p. 3; 
Chron. Bihl, 1899, pp. 188, 467. 

2 Calmes, La Quest, des Evang. Synop., 1898, p. 26. 

3 Lagrange, art. : Rev. Bihl, 1896, pp. 26, 2y. 



30 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



tion of these gospels at 60-70 A. D. While granting 
that this is only an approximate estimation, and that 
it is " obtained from internal criticism which ever 
tends to fall short of the truth and to content itself 
with approximations," he adds that '' at most there 
is an interval of from thirty to forty years between 
the editing of the Synoptic gospels and the very brief 
period of the Saviour's historical activity. This gap, 
however — as the critical works of the last century 
have conclusively proved — is filled up to a great, 
extent by the very fact that the three Synoptic gospels 
were edited by the aid of former original sources, 
either oral or written." ^ 

Thus, S. Luke assures us that he was careful to 
consult primitive sources and to faithfully reproduce 
well-authenticated recollections and documents. "For- 
asmuch," he says at the beginning of his gospel, " as 
many have taken in hand to set forth in order a 
narration of the things that have been accomplished 
among us, according as they have delivered them unto 
us, who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and 
ministers of the Word, it seemed good to me also, hav- 
ing diligently attained to all things from the beginning, 
to write to thee, in order, most excellent Theophilus, 
that thou mayest know the verity of those words in 
which thou hast been instructed." " 

Such testimony, so unquestionably sincere, is more- 
over confirmed by what is found from an internal 
criticism of the third Gospel. Like the Book of Acts, 
it is made up of documents which retain all the candor 
of writings belonging to the primitive age of the 
Church. '' Luke had under his eyes," says Renan, 
" originals which we no longer possess. . . . But he is 
a biographer of the first century, a divine artist who, 
apart from the information he has extracted from the 

1 Batiffol, Jesus et L'Hist., 2d ed., 1904, p. 17. 

2 5*. Luke, c. i, vs. 1-4. 



INTRODUCTION 



31 



more ancient sources, shows us the character of the 
Founder with a feUcity of touch, an inspired grasp, 
and a sharpness of rehef which the other two Synop- 
tics do not possess." ^ 

The first and second Gospels also, when viewed 
from the same standpoint, give evidence of their de- 
pendence upon memoirs or documents dating from 
the Apostolic age and compiled by direct witnesses of 
the Saviour's words and deeds. As regards S. 
Mark's gospel, Renan thinks that " the document, al- 
though composed after the death of Peter, was in a 
sense his work ; it was the way in which he had been 
accustomed to relate the life of Jesus. Peter knew 
scarcely any Greek; Mark served him as a dragoman; 
hundreds of times he had been the channel through 
which this marvelous history had passed. . . . The 
strong impression left by Jesus is there found almost 
entire. We see Him really living and acting. . . . 
Everything is taken from life ; we feel that we are in 
the presence of memories." And again : *' the ob- 
servations are most minute and come, no doubt, from 
an eye-witness." ^ 

Similarly, of S. Matthew's gospel, Renan says that 
" it evidently merits special confidence in respect of 
the Discourses : here are the Logia, the very notes 
taken from a clear and lively memory of the teaching 
of Jesus. . . . Their profoundly Hebraic turn of 
thought, the analogies they present to the Sayings of 
the Jewish Doctors of the period, their perfect har- 
mony with Galilean nature, are notable marks of ori- 
ginality : . . . What gives value to the work attributed 
to Matthew, are the Discourses attributed to Jesus, 
preserved with an extreme fidelity, and probably in the 
relative order in which they were first written." ^ 

^ Renan, Life of lesus, p. 66. 

2 Renan, The Gospels, pp. 59, 60, 61 ; Life of Jesus, p. 62,. 

3 Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 62; The Gospels, p. 112. 



32 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



Among later critics, Jiilicher views the first gospel 
as perfectly expressing the incisive vigor and unpre- 
tending simplicity of Jesus' words. Indeed, he per- 
ceives the same marks of authenticity in all the Gospel 
discourses. *'As a rule," he says, " there lies in all the 
Synoptic Logia a kernel of individual character so in- 
imitable and so fresh that their authenticity is raised 
above all suspicion. Jesus must have spoken just as 
the Synoptists make Him speak, when He roused the 
people from their torpor, when He comforted them 
and lovingly stooped to their needs, when He revealed 
to His disciples His inmost thoughts about the message 
of the Kingdom, when He guided them and gave them 
laws, when He contended forcibly with the hostile 
Pharisees and Sadducees or worsted them by force of 
reasoning; for, not otherwise can we explain the 
world-convulsing influence gained in so short a life's 
work." ^ 

We can, then, readily understand how Renan could 
express, in a few words, his appreciation of the canon- 
ical gospels, as when he declared that he accepted them 
as " documents of good faith, to which nobody would 
think of comparing the apocryphal gospels." " It will 
be observed," he says, " that I have made no use of 
the apocryphal gospels. In no sense should these com- 
positions be placed on the same footing as the Canoni- 
cal Gospels. They are tiresome and puerile amplifica- 
tions, having almost always the canonical documents 
for a base, and never adding anything to them of any 
value. ... It would be doing an injury to Christian 
literature to place these insipid compositions on the 
same footing with the masterpieces of Mark, Luke, 
and Matthew." ^ 

And Harnack has more recently thus expressed his 
conviction : " The gospels are not ' party tracts ' ; 

1 Julicher, op. cit:, pp. 368, 2)7'^' 

2 Renan, The Life of Jesus, pp. 62, 66 ; The Christian 
Church, 7 vols., 1888- 1889, vol. vi, p. 272. 



INTRODUCTION 



^Z 



neither are they writings which, as yet, bear the radi- 
cal impress of the Greek spirit. In their essential 
substance they belong to the first, the Jewish, epoch 
of Christianity, that brief epoch which may be de- 
noted as the paleontological. . . . When all is said, 
the Greek language lies upon these writings only like 
a diaphanous veil, and it requires hardly any effort to 
retranslate their contents into Hebrew or Aramaic. 
That the tradition here presented to us is, in the main, 
at first hand, is obvious." ^ 

While Jiilicher says that " the Synoptic gospels are 
of priceless value not only as books of religious edi- 
fication, but also as authorities for the history of 
Jesus." ^ 

Modern Criticism. — After a half-century, there- 
fore, of laborious researches, stimulated by the denials 
of Strauss and Baur, critics have come to admit the 
historical value of the entire content of our gospels. 
Such an admission, indeed, is most important ; for, if 
these writings present in substance the belief of the 
primitive Church and the original tradition, the recol- 
lections of those who were the Saviour's contempor- 
aries, as well as His own testimony ; if, moreover, as we 
shall see, nobody nowadays doubts the sincerity of 
these very witnesses, nor that of the editors who have 
transmitted such testimony to us, the question arises : 
Does not this suffice for our belief in Christ, in His 
person, and in His doctrine? And should we not 
also conclude that, assuredly, the Christian religion is- 
the true one? As early as 1835, Strauss had written: 
" The biblical history would be unassailable if it were 
evident that it had been committed to writing by eye- 
witnesses, at least by men neighbors of the events." ^ 

1 Harnack, What is Christianity f p. 23; Bruce, art.: Jesus, 
E. B., col, 2437. 

2 Jiilicher, op. cit., p. 371. 

3 Strauss, Life of Jesus, 2d American ed., 1845, p. 54. 

3 



34 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



In our own day the theory rejected by Strauss has 
been verified ; and, nevertheless, RationaUsts nowadays 
actually refuse to admit the conclusions thence ensu- 
ing. But, be it noted well, the Rationalist opposition to 
our sacred writings is now exclusively directed against 
those parts which are so evidently supernatural ; it 
views these, not according to the principles of scientific 
and historical order, but rather and very often with the 
animus of philosophical and religious prejudice. 
Renan cynically admitted as much when he wrote : 
"At the bottom of all discussion on such matters is the 
question of the supernatural. . . . That the gospels 
are in part legendary is quite evident, inasmuch as 
they are full of miracles and of the supernatural ; but 
there are legends and legends. ... It is not because 
it has been proved to me beforehand that the evan- 
gelists do not merit absolute credence that I reject 
the miracles which they relate. It is because they tell 
of miracles that I say: The gospels are legends; they 
may contain history, but, certainly, all that they set 
forth is not historical." ^ 

It is, then, owing to an a priori prejudice 
that Renan ventures to assign to the very days of the 
apostles themselves a legendary idealization of Jesus' 
life. "A rapid work of transformation," he claims, 
" went on in the same manner in the twenty or thirty 
years which followed the death of Jesus, and stamped 
upon His biography the absolute traits of an ideal 
legend." ^ 

This a priori conviction of the non-existence of the 
supernatural rests eventually upon the monstrous, ir- 
rational, and immoral hypothesis of God's non-exist- 
ence, and its falsity is further proved by the very ex- 
tremes to which it reduces Rationalist critics. Renan, 
for instance, is obliged to go to such lengths in order 



1 Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 13, 15, 44. 

2 Renan, op. cit., p. 68. 



INTRODUCTION 35 

to give a reasonable explanation of the supernatural 
features of the Gospels, that such attempts are enough 
to condemn that philosophic prejudice which compels 
him to resort to these expedients. 

He admits that miraculous cures " held a large place 
in the hfe of Jesus." But how does he explain them? 
By declaring that " the touch of a rare personality is 
worth more that all the resources of pharmacy." He 
admits, indeed, that Mary Magdalen, the Disciples 
on the road to Emmaus, in the Cenacle, on the 
banks of the Lake of Genesareth, and upon the 
Mount of Ascension, believed in the apparition of the 
Risen Christ; but his only explanation of such behef 
is that all these various witnesses were uniformly the 
victims of illusion and hallucination. It was thus, 
also, he says, at the miracle of Pentecost, when 
the Apostles were so unusually transformed: he 
views this miracle as being but a fierce tempest, a 
whirlwind that shook the windows of the room, a 
dazzling light that illumined the faces of the persons 
assembled. 

We must say that such grotesque and plainly in- 
sufficient explanations of facts which he is obliged 
to admit as historic, but which he wishes to explain 
as wholly natural, evidently prove that his way of in- 
terpreting the same does not square with the truth. 
And this indeed justifies his own declarations: 
" If miracle and the inspiration of certain books are 
actual facts, our method is false and wrong. ... If 
miracle has any reality, this book is but a tissue 
of errors." ^ 

Current Opinions. — At the present time, however, 
critics are apparently guided by principles of a less ab- 
solute character when expressing their appreciation of 
the gospels : the radical rationalism of Strauss and 

1 Renan, op. cit., pp. 271, 276; The Apostles, pp. 46-50, 53-54. 
55-57, 60-72, 85, 170; Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 12, 15. 



;^6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Renan has in fact quite gone out of favor. But, al- 
though contemporary scholars assert their rejection of 
the axiom that '' miracles are impossible," they still 
claim to ground exclusively upon the observations of 
historical or literary criticism, a conclusion which 
closely resembles the Rationalist thesis. 

Thus, Schmiedel has put the supernatural features 
of the Gospel to the test of an extremely critical com- 
mentary, and feels compelled to conclude that, if in- 
deed partly historical, our sacred writings are also 
partly the result of a process of idealization that in- 
fluenced the Saviour's words and deeds at an early 
period of Christianity.^ 

JiiHcher, also, after asserting the Synoptic gospels to 
be '' of priceless value ... as authorities for ascer- 
taining Jesus' history," adds that " what they know 
and tell is a mixture of truth and poetry. . . . Their 
task was not to understand" and estimate the historical 
Jesus ; but to believe in Him, to love Him above all 
else, to teach men to hope in Him : they did not de- 
scribe the Jesus of real life, but the Christ as He ap- 
peared to the hearts of His followers." ^ 

A like theory is that recently advanced by Loisy. 
He thinks that " while the Saviour's preaching and 
the gospel events are transformed in S. John," they 
are but " slightly glossed in the Synoptics." He 
claims with reference to the Synoptic Christ, " all 
that He did, all that He said, rightly and naturally cor- 
responds with His times and environment. The 
world which we see surging around Him is a real 
world, the persons therein described standing out in 
bold relief, and fully alive in their individual charac- 
ters. Everywhere there is life, and along therewith 
there is a truthfully historical representation." ^ 

1 Schmiedel, art. E. B., par. 137, col. 1876. 
2Julicher, op. cit., pp. 368, 371. 
. 3 Loisy, Autour, p. 44. 



INTRODUCTION 37 

On the other hand, and as it were by way of con- 
trast, the same author writes : '' In the gospels there 
remains but an echo, necessarily weakened and a little 
confused, of the words of Jesus, the general impres- 
sion He produced upon hearers well-disposed towards 
Him, with some of the more striking of His sentences, 
as they were understood and interpreted; and finally 
there remains the movement w^hich He initiated." ^ 

More recently, Loisy expressed his opinion that '' it 
is because the gospels are, above all, works of edifica- 
tion that their authors did not fear to treat tradi- 
tional matter with great freedom; and the artifices, 
by which a certain kind of exegesis endeavors to dissi- 
mulate it, are perfectly useless. . . . H the parables were 
gradually merged into allegories ; if the Saviour's 
teaching was constantly adapted to the needs of the 
growing Church ; if a process of progressive idealiza- 
tion, of symbolic and dogmatic interpretation influenced 
the very facts, the historian must be able to find 
it out." The gospels, then, " are not to be 
used without discernment " : the critic must sift 
" what belongs to primitive reminiscence from what 
pertains to the appreciation of faith and the develop- 
ment of Christian belief." - 

His views are stated even more explicitly in the 
second and enlarged French edition of " The Gospel 
and the Church." He tells us that " the gospels are 
not strictly historical documents," but '' a product and 
a witness of an ancient faith," and " the principal 
documents of Christian faith for the first period of 
its history." ^ 

This theory he applies in an especial manner to the 
idea of Jesus' messianic character. '' Tradition must 
follow its natural tendency," he writes, " and was soon 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 13. 

2 Loisy, Autour, pp. 44, 83. 

3 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 23, 2>^, 50, 51. 



38 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

to discover, in the ministry of Jesus, characteristic fea- 
tures and indubitable proofs of His Messianic dignity. 
The glory of the risen Lord threw new Hght on the 
memories of His early career. Thence arose a kind of 
idealization of His discourses and His acts, and a 
tendency to systematize them. . . . Thus everything 
assumes, as it were, a relation to the Messiah, and all 
contributes to prove that Jesus was the Christ." ^ 

He even claims that " this inevitable and legitimate 
idealization of Christ . . . must have affected, to a 
certain extent, the form of legendary development, and 
presents itself as such at the first glance of criticism, 
although actually it is nothing but an expansion of 
faith, and an attempt, thought an insufficient one, to 
set Jesus on the height that is His rightful place." ^ 

Thus, he believes that " the narratives of the child- 
hood of Christ are for the historian only an expres- 
sion and an assertion of faith in the Messiah." The 
manifestation on the banks. of the Jordan, the tempta- 
tion in the desert, the acclamations of the demoniacs, 
the multiplication of the loaves, the transfiguration, the 
rending of the veil of the Temple, are but so many 
figures or symbols whereby the early Church expressed 
its faith in Christ; the Church, however, in most in- 
stances, grounded its belief upon early facts and real 
data which it was content to interpret in the light of 
actual historic • realities, and to adapt, as it were, to 
the condition of the immortal Christ.^ 

What shall we say of this theory? From the view- 
point of our projected study of Christ, we may say 
that, even in the light of the conclusions of the fore- 
going contemporary critics, the Synoptic gospels main- 
tain their incomparable value as history. 

First of all, they are at least the authentic and as- 
sured witnesses of the faith of the early Church, alike 
during the second generation of Christians, when they 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 38, 39, 2 Loisy, op. cit., p. 41. 

^ Loisy, op. cit., pp. 39, 50, 



INTRODUCTION 



39 



were presumably edited, as during the first Christian 
generation which furnished those traditions and docu- 
ments for their compilation. In these gospels, in fact, 
the idea of Jesus is as extraordinary as the parallel 
view of Him which we find in S. Paul's Epistles. 
Jesus is more than a great prophet : He was not content 
with teaching His disciples the loftiest truths : by His 
miracles He has shown that He wields a divine power ; 
by His death He has become the redeemer of mankind ; 
by His resurrection He has wondrously shown Himself 
to be what He declared that He was whilst still on 
earth, namely, the Messiah and Son of God. 

Thus did the early Christians esteem Jesus. But, 
we may ask. Whence came their persuasion? Was it 
not due to the impression made by the Divine Master 
upon those who had lived with Him? Must we not 
suppose that there was an essential correspondence be- 
tween such primitive belief and the object thereof? 

This much is granted by several critics. Thus, to 
quote Jiilicher : " H the total picture of Jesus which 
we obtain from the Synoptics displays all the magic of 
reality, (in Luke just as much as in Matthew and 
Mark), this is not the effect of any literary skill, often 
indeed defective, on the part of the Evangelists, nor is 
it the result of the poetic and creative power of the au- 
thorities lying behind them; but it is rather owing to 
the fact that they, while modestly keeping their own 
personalities in the background, painted Jesus as they 
found Him already existing in the Christian com- 
munities, and that this, their model, corresponded in 
all essentials to the original. . . . The true merit of 
the Synoptists is that, in spite of all the poetic touches 
they employ, they did not repaint, but only handed on 
the Christ of history. . . . The tendency towards 
legendary amplification contented itself m His case 
with adding some brightly colored ornament to the 
original picture." ^ 

ijiilicher, op. eit., pp. 371, 374. 



40 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Similarly, O. Holtzmann, alluding to the miraculous 
episodes, which in fact appear to him to be partly 
legendary, says that '' they do mirror the sentiments 
which the infant Christian community entertained re- 
garding Jesus . . . and in so far they contribute to 
the historical understanding of the personality of 
Jesus. They show clearly that even in the circles 
which specially preserved the historical meaning of 
His life, the image of Jesus early outgrew all human 
measure ; and that can only have been due to the im- 
pression which Jesus originally made." ^ 

Loisy, too, with regard to the Saviour, thinks that 
" His grandeur was not perceived until after His 
death " ; that the idealization of Christ after His death 
was " inevitable and legitimate . . . although actually 
it is nothing but an expansion of faith, and an attempt, 
though an insufficient one, to set Jesus on the height 
that is His rightful one." And again : " If the point 
of view is new, and differs from that of the immediate 
witnesses it is none the less true in a certain sense. - 

And elsewhere we are told that " the glory of the 
risen Saviour threw new light on the memories of His 
earthly career, so as to adapt them to the condition of 
the immortal Christ. This perspective, which may be 
called Messianic, has covered over the properly historic 
basis of the gospel. It has not altered it substantially : 
from the viewpoint of faith, it even places the work of 
Jesus in a truer light than does the reality." ^ 

Nor is this all. The Synoptics, as critics admit, are 
not only an expose of the belief of the early Church, 
but are also an entirely authentic and substantially 
faithful account of Jesus' words and deeds. So that 
to obtain a correct idea of Christ, there is no need to 
enter into a critical discussion of the respective merits 

i Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. yy. 

2 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 40, 41. 

3 Loisy, Autour, p. 84. 



INTRODUCTION 4I 

of the elements composing these writings. We may 
justly take these writings as they stand; and if we 
are careful to base our study not upon this or that 
isolated detail, but upon the sum-total of the accounts, 
we may rest assured of coming to one solid and cer- 
tain conclusion, namely that our study will be essen- 
tially based upon that substantial history which critic- 
ism admits as the fundamental germ of these docu- 
ments; whilst those chance elements, supposedly 
clinging to this basic nucleus owing to the progressive 
effort of Christian reflexion, may have influenced the 
result attained, only so far as to give it some sort of 
relief, to make its full meaning appear, and not to 
corrupt it in any essential respect. 

Influence of Tradition. — We may accordingly ex- 
amine more in detail the proposed theory and find to 
what extent the Synoptic accounts may have been af- 
fected by tradition. To ascertain the authentic historical 
element as also the result of possible idealization in this 
matter, only three methods of procedure are available. 
Thus, we may take each gospel separately and en- 
deavor to find if it was arranged after a systematic 
plan, or even in accordance with a secret mental pre- 
occupation whereby an intentional coloring may have 
been deliberately or perhaps unconsciously imparted to 
the editing of events and of discourses. Or again, by 
comparing the three gospel records, we may try to 
find out which one represents the original tradition and 
what elements contained in the others have been ap- 
parently added to the primitive. Lastly, we may com- 
pare these gospels with other writings of the early 
Church, such as the Acts of the Apostles and the vari- 
ous Epistles, in order to see in what measure we can 
perceive an influence of facts and of ideas, of sub- 
sequent history or of later theology, upon the process 
of editing the gospel material. 

This task of verification evidently presents some 
difficult features and may be easily hampered by pre- 



42 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



judice as also lend itself to arbitrary methods. " It 
is impossible," says Lagrange, " for the critic not to be 
guided, when choosing what belongs and what does 
not belong to primitive tradition, by his ideas of his- 
torical evolution." ^ 

Where, indeed, we may ask, can we find in the 
gospels the alleged traces of a systematically designed 
plan which lessens the fideHty of the account? No 
critic now thinks of questioning the sincerity of the 
gospel writers. The very archaic character of the 
language, the exactness of the portrayal of life in the 
Palestinian world prior to 70 A. D., prove how ex- 
tremely faithful they were in making use of tradi- 
tions and documents. Such fidelity is especially not- 
able on the part of S. Luke. 

" Their sincerity," writes Lagrange, " is no longer 
questioned, and it would be a waste of time to defend 
it. . . . We have put their absolute sincerity beyond 
all attack. It is the honorable trait of actual criticism 
not to doubt it at all." ^ 

. " The three Evangelists are all found to write in a 
uniform style," says Batiffol, " to write Greek in short, 
disjointed phrases 'wherein', as Renan remarks, 
' the old syntax is totally shattered, wherein are to 
be found the clear and simple sweep of the 
Hebrew narrative, the fine and exquisite tone of the 
Hebrew Proverbs, and wherein we feel that we hear, 
as it were, the same popular yet peculiar accent that 
must have been used by Jesus and His Galilean 
apostles." ^ 

Thus the editor of the third Gospel is evidently the 
author of the Acts of the Apostles, and in each work 
he reproduces many discourses. There is, however, a 

1 Lagrange, Jesus et la Crit.; art.: Bullet, de Litt. EccL, 
Jan., 1904, p. 21. 

2 Lagrange, loc. cit., pp. 18, 21. 

3 Batiffol, Jesus et L'Hist., p. 18.. 



INTRODUCTION 43 

noticeable and complete difference between those 
which he assigns to Jesus in the third Gospel and 
those which, in the Book of Acts, he ascribes to the 
apostles. In the former we find the primitive and 
original method of teaching by way of parable and 
example, whilst in the latter work the style of dis- 
course assumes the more derived quality of a com- 
mentary. Whence comes this divergence, we ask, un- 
less it be owing to the very fact that the historian was 
careful to reproduce exactly his sources of informa- 
tion and to adhere scrupulously to facts ? 

S. Luke, moreover, was the disciple of S. Paul and 
his writings show that he was greatly influenced by 
his master's teaching. And yet, as we shall see later, 
he allows himself to be very little influenced by that 
apostle's theological opinions about Christ the Word 
of God when, in the third gospel, he describes the per- 
son of Christ Jesus and mentions His personal mani- 
festation. Assuredly, this is a very remarkable fact! 

The EvangeUsts, indeed, shared the belief of the 
early Church in Christ as the Son of God, the Re- 
deemer of mankind, risen and dwelling in the glory 
of His Eternal Father, and certainly they wrote partly 
in view of establishing and confirming the faithful in 
this belief. Nay more, the documents employed for 
the editing of the gospels, — summaries of narratives 
and collections of discourses, — had been perhaps also 
edited with the didactic purpose of instructing the 
early group of Christians. But is it not also true 
that such educational purpose may accord with his- 
toric fidelity? It supposes, of course, a special point 
of view, a determined choice of materials, and a 
particular arrangement of the same, but not necessar- 
ily a real partisan spirit, an effort towards exclusive 
system that would serve to transform and to denatur- 
alize the true historical outline. 

If, then, the Evangelists' sincerity is undoubtable, — 
as is that also of those primitive editors whose docu- 



44 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ments they had consulted, — perhaps we may suppose a 
work of slow transformation, of progressive ideaUza- 
tion, which affected the Christian conscience owing 
to the secret influence of dogmatic endeavor? But, 
where locate this mysterious process? 

This development cannot be ascribed to the Synop- 
tic authors themselves. Criticism tends more and 
more to place these gospels in dependence upon the 
oldest sources and primitive documents. The aim of 
the Synoptic editors was not so much to reproduce 
the prevailing belief of their times, but rather to 
ground the faith upon most certain foundations in 
keeping with the testimony of a duly verified tradi- 
tion and by aid of the best guaranteed data. Naught 
is more decisive on this point than S. Luke's state- 
ment at the beginning of his gospel and which is borne 
out by an examination of his work and those of the 
other Synoptists. 

Or, again, may such an idealizing process have 
been due to the influence of that oral tradition which 
had preceded the editing of the documentary 
sources? Are not these very documents, however, 
as indeed the third Evangelist apparently wanted peo- 
ple to understand, ancient, original, dating from 
the dawn of the Church's life, and belonging to an 
epoch when dogmatic idealization and, more particu- 
larly, a legendary transformation was rather impos- 
sible? At all events, they pertain to the first Chris- 
tian generation ; we might even say that, in part, they 
were edited in order to aid the ordinary catecheti- 
cal methods of instruction. 

Now, at a time when Jesus' contemporaries were 
still living, when the Christian communities were 
still being evangelized by His own disciples, or at 
least by those preachers of the gospel who were closely 
acquainted with His immediate witnesses, may we 
not rest assured that the then current system of cate- 
chetism h^d a solid basis and was wisely managed? 



INTRODUCTION 



45 



Is there not reason to believe that, like our present 
Evangelists, the editors of those primitive document- 
ary sources related, not a fluctuating and anonymous 
belief, but precisely the exact tradition of witnesses 
then living and known, namely the apostles and dis- 
ciples of the Saviour? Everything tends to prove 
that such was the case : in the days of SS. Peter and 
Paul, of SS. Mark and Luke, it had ever been sought 
to base the faith upon the reality of history ; and the 
endeavor of the apologist, or the interest of the theo- 
logian, far from darkening the insight of the critic 
and the conscientious care of the chronicler, must have 
served rather as their encouragement and support. 

Furthermore, a comparison of the three gospels 
will prove that they do not reproduce the Saviour's 
life and teachings exactly in the same manner, the ac- 
counts showing notable divergences both in substance 
and in form. But, although to some extent this 
is true, and although modern critics do not sufficiently 
consider it when they assert the mutual dependence 
of these writings, we may ask if we have in this case 
anything different from the constant divergences 
found in the works of chroniclers who give indepen- 
dent versions of the same events or discourses? 
How many omissions are met with in the writings of 
historians who are usually most exact! How many 
implied meanings on the part of those who are most 
conscientious, how many variations in the details 
and expressions, how many apparent contradictions, 
— all such features being explained by the mere fact 
that the narrators are different, or that the witnesses 
upon whom they depend are different, or by the fact 
that the conditions and the viewpoints are various ! 

Now, we ask, is the case different with the Evan- 
geUsts? Are not most of the evident divergences in 
the choice and arrangement of materials, in the de- 
tails of the accounts and discourses supposed to be 
merely casual, in nowise irreconcilable, mutually sup- 



46 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

plementary and explanatory rather than contradictory ? 
Therefore they do not really affect the accuracy 
of the information given by historians, but, in attest- 
ing their reciprocal independence and the independ- 
ence of testimonies which they present, rather confirm 
the general exactness and fidelity of the documents. 

Now, if we do not succeed in settling some ap- 
parent contradictions, nor in harmonizing, in a 
fully satisfactory way, some particular fact or other, 
must not this circumstance be due to the anecdotal and 
fragmentary character of our writings? The omis- 
sions, the dissimilarities, the lack of connection or 
of harmony would require for their explanation 
further information which is lacking; but because it 
is lacking, we surely should not infer the inaccuracy 
of our Evangelists. Are we not, indeed, too often 
inclined to allege errors and contradictions where, after 
more careful scrutiny, a new bit of information 
later leads to a sound and exact solution, or, at least, 
a well-founded explanation? 

The danger of subjectivism and of arbitrary 
methods, however, is especially to be feared when 
one endeavors to ascertain the influence exerted upon 
the Gospel content by the events or the beliefs of the 
Christian Church. That the spectacle of events, ac- 
complished as a fulfilment of the Saviour's predictions, 
should have contributed to place in fuller light some 
of His prophecies; that a familiar knowledge of 
Christian theology, so splendidly developed by S. Paul, 
should have guided historians in their choice and 
setting of materials, all this we may concede: it is, 
after all, quite natural. 

But is it not arbitrary to claim that the Saviour's 
prophecies of His Passion, of His resurrection, of His 
disciples' missionary labors were arranged after the 
event, as though Christ's knowledge were merely of an 
ordinary and natural character? Is it not also an un- 
critical prejudice to claim as a Pauline influence all 



INTRODUCTION 



47 



that part of Jesus' teachings which agrees with the 
pecuhar points in S. Paul's theology? As if the 
apostle had not declared his dependence upon the 
teaching of Christ Himself, as if the assent which 
the early Church gave to his special teachings and its 
approval by the Saviour's immediate disciples did not 
rather imply that he was really inspired by the blas- 
ter's words, that he had merely to announce and 
sustain what had already been outlined in Jesus' 
teachings ? 

Loisy who, like J. Weiss, finds considerable Paulin- 
ism in the second Gospel, on this very pretext did not 
hesitate to recently express his disagreement with 
the tradition which accepts S. Mark as the final 
editor of this gospel : " We do not readily imagine," 
he says, '' the same man recording, first of all, S. 
Peter's confession as gathered from the current re- 
miniscences of that apostle, and then, like Paul, com- 
menting thereon in the way that we find." ^ 

It need hardly be said that the foregoing consider- 
ations do not at all imply that the historian need not 
verify the truth of the precise manner in which the 
gospels relate the Saviour's life and words. The de- 
mands of apologetics may now render such a process 
of verification timely and necessary for the various 
points at issue. Yet, it remains true that the con- 
siderations presented are enough to guard us from 
going to the extremes of a novel criticism, at once 
dubious and conjectural, and warrant us in rightly 
and seriously supposing that the historical exactness 
of the gospels is far more perfect than has been 
claimed. This presumption, indeed, amounts to an 
absolute confidence as regards a number of difficult 
and important points in connection with which the 
work of critical verification is conducted under con- 



1 Weiss, J., op. cit., 1903; Loisy, art.: Rev. d'Hist.. etc., 1904, 
p. 82. 



48 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ditions of a very favorable sort and leads to con- 
clusions at once significant and serving to fully con- 
firm the general results. 

The character of the popular Messianic ideal, for in- 
stance, which is presented in the Synoptic gospels as 
circumstances required, is quite remarkable. . The 
eagerness of the multitudes and of the disciples them- 
selves for temporal power, their hope for a Messiah, 
son of David, an earthly and conquering king, their 
haste to seek after the first places in the Kingdom, 
which they imagined like that of this world, — all is 
graphically portrayed and corresponds exactly with 
what the non-inspired documents of that period men- 
tion about the Messianic hopes of the ancient Jews. 

And this fact is surprising enough when we think 
of the transformation which was wrought in the 
Church after Christ's resurrection and the descent of 
the Spirit at Pentecost. For, assuredly, if any per- 
spective might be changed by the influence of new 
ideas, it was the ancient Jewish view of the Messiah, 
as cherished at this epoch. It seems that the early 
Christian preachers and catechists of that time should 
have inevitably tended to allow to pass into oblivion the 
chimerical hopes of olden days, and especially to con- 
ceal and to dissimulate the earlier imaginings of the 
disciples, if not to correct and to ennoble them in 
accordance with the new realities of the Christian 
dispensation. 

But, let us repeat, it is the national Messianism, 
fully described in its ancient coloring, which the 
Synoptists portray as filling the hearts of both the 
apostles and the people. Is it not a very significant 
fact, — this freedom of our sacred writers from the 
ideas current in their day on a matter where their in- 
fluence must have made itself felt so powerfully? 

The Synoptic description of the apostles them- 
selves, moreover, is no less interesting to consider 
from this same view-point. It is nowadays generally 



INTRODUCTION 



49 



admitted that, in some way, the second gospel de- 
pends on the tradition handed down by S. Peter, by 
whom S. Mark, his companion, was employed as an 
intermediary. It is also commonly held now that 
the first, as also the third Gospel are based upon the 
collection of Logia, of Sayings of the Lord, of which 
S. Matthew is usually considered the editor. In a 
general way, it is recognized that the original docu- 
ments, comprising collections of narratives and dis- 
courses which underlie the present text of the four 
Gospels, are closely akin to the memories which the 
early Christians treasured of the Apostles, and that, 
at any rate, they were compiled at a period when the 
personality of the apostles themselves was held in 
the highest estimation among the members of the 
early Church. 

Is not, then, the very manner in which the apostles 
are described by the Synoptists a striking proof of 
the accuracy and historical sincerity of these inspired 
writers? We are told in detail about the apostles' 
vices and virtues, of their faults and good deeds, of 
their timid ways and their generous impulses. We 
are told of their humble origin; of their slowness to 
understand the meaning of the words of their Divine 
Master; of their occasional opposition to His views; 
of their resistance to His ways of acting; of their 
cowardice in the Garden of Olives, in the Pretorium, 
on Calvary; of their discouragement after His death; 
and, lastly, of their doubts about the reality of His 
resurrection. Certainly, such a picture must be 
the work of none but accurate and truthful wit- 
nesses, of those who do not wish to write unnatur- 
ally, nor to conceal anything really important, of those 
who want to view events in the light of current reali- 
ties, as also from their own personal impressions, 
in order the better to record the facts of history. 

And what shall we say of the Synoptic portrait 
of Jesus Himself? Some claim that the gospels are 

4 



50 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

rather an expression of Christian faith than an exact 
statement of facts. How is it, then, and this thought 
occurs instantly, that the well-known early Christian 
belief in Christ's preexistence and divinity is appar- 
ently so little reflected in these gospels, so little, indeed, 
that some critics have supposed that the Saviour's 
divinity is not really revealed therein? This tends 
to show that our Evangelists knew how to abstract 
from their personal convictions and to keep them- 
selves free from the theological ideas of their day, 
in order to reproduce faithfully the facts of history: 
this fact, to be sure, is especially significant as re- 
gards the third Evangelist who was so familiar with 
the teaching of S. Paul. It tends also to prove that 
the basic documents and memoirs of the- Synoptic ac- 
counts, that the editor of the Logia, and that all primi- 
tive tradition had retained intact the Christ of history, 
and preserved the real human outline of Him who, on 
the day after His resurrection, was already deemed 
to be the triumphant Messiah who shared the power 
of God. 

In particular, as regards S. Luke, Jiilicher re- 
marks that *' where we should have undoubtedly been 
obliged to recognize the Disciple of Paul, i. e. in the 
doctrine of a pre-existing Christ or of the atoning 

value of His death, Luke fails us altogether 

Luke related the Gospel history from the viewpoint 
of the later Gentile Church, without any infusion 
of the theology of his time." ^ 

Sanday also notices the remarkable contrast be- 
tween the Sermon on the Mount and the Epistles of 
S. Peter and of S. Paul. "And yet," he says, " these 
writings are practically contemporary with the com- 
position of the gospels. The two streams, of his- 
torical narrative on the one hand and theological in- 
ference on the other, really run side by side. They do 

1 Jiilicher, op, cit., p. ZZZ- 



INTRODUCTION 51 

hot exclude but rather supplement, and indeed critic- 
ally confirm each other. For, if the gospels had been 
really not genuine histories of the words and acts of 
Christ, but colored products of the age succeeding 
His death, we may be sure that they would have re- 
flected the characteristic attitude of that age far 
more than they do." ^ 

It is claimed, of course, that the glory of the risen 
Lord cast new light upon the memories of His earthly 
career, and that we must ascribe to a posthumous 
idealization the features tending to exalt Christ above 
mere humanity by attributing to Him knowledge and 
power of a supernatural character. This claim, how- 
ever, is an a priori prejudice rather than a conclusion 
drawn from strictly critical observations. The selec- 
tion which the critics make, among the elements of 
the Synoptic portrait of Jesus, is essentially based 
upon their preconceived idea of Him: they picture to 
themselves, beforehand, a diminished Christ, more or 
less conscious of His mission, of His future, of His 
divinity. Such prejudice, indeed, is very evident in 
the case of most of the so-called independent critics. 

Thus Schmiedel says that '' it would clearly be 
wrong, in an investigation, such as the present, to 
start from any such postulate or axiom as that 
* miracles are impossible ' " ; but he also adds : " it is 
quite permissible for us to regard as historical only 
those of the miracles which, even at the present day, 
physicians are able to effect by psychical methods, as, 
more especially, cures of mental maladies." ^ 

The views held by Jiilicher, O. Holtzmann, and 
Harnack also betray the same animus. While Wrede 
holds as a principle that, for all those who admit 

1 Sanday, art. : Jesus Christ, H. D., p. 649. 

2 Schmiedel, art. : Gospels, E. B., par. 137, col. 1876. 



52 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

only historical criterions, miracle and prophecy are 
utterly excluded from the field of history/ 

The untenable character of such prejudice on the 
part of some critics will be apparent from several 
observations. If we are to believe Loisy, among others, 
" the Synoptic Christ is a being of flesh and bone. 
He deals with men as one of themselves, despite His 
conviction of His exalted mission, or, perhaps, because 
of such persuasion. He speaks and acts as a man: 
He sits at table with the Pharisees and Publicans. He 
allows the Magdalen to touch Him. He talks fami- 
Harly with His disciples. He is tempted by the devil. 
He becomes sorrowful in the Garden of Gethsemane. 
He works miracles through a spirit of compassion, 
hiding rather than proclaiming them guarantees for 
His mission. Before His very judges He stands 
calm and stately, although He allows the soldiery to 
strike and wound Him. In dying. His expiring cry 
is one of distressful agony. If in His discourses, in 
His deeds we perceive the touch of the divine which 
hfts Him above mankind, even its best exemplars, no 
less true is it that all His words, all His deeds are 
very human, and, so to say, fully charged with hu- 
man vitality and, despite the underlying wonderful 
reality, quite naturally corresponding to His times 
and surroundings." ^ 

It would seem, then, unwarranted to assert that, 
as regards detail, the current theological ideas had 
influenced historians who thus present Christ's hu- 
manity at an epoch when all of the faithful beheld 
Him crowned with the aureole of the divinity, and 
who describe Him as being seemingly ignorant of the 
hour of final judgment, as declining the title of 
'* good " which belongs to God alone, as persecuted, 

1 Jiilicher, op. cit., p. 371 ; Holtzmann, O., op. cit., Gr. ed., 
pp. 58-59; Harnack, op. cit., p. 30; Wrede, op. cit., r. 7. 

2 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., 1903, p. 72. 



INTRODUCTION 



53 



mocked, crucified, and abandoned by all, even by His 
Father. Why should we accept the evidences of 
His humiUty and yet reject the proofs of His divine 
grandeur? Is not the unquestionable truth of the 
former a guarantee of the like historical value of 
the others? 

So appropriate, so skillful, and so natural withal is 
the Synoptic portrait of Christ's divinity that it fully 
agrees with what is said of His human characteristics, 
the whole picture leaving a deep impression of liv- 
ing reality. We may add, moreover, that only a 
historical reality corresponding to the entire portrait 
sketched by the Synoptists, only a historical Christ an- 
swering to the Christ of the faith, a Christ at once 
man and God, sufficiently explains the unusual im- 
pression which He made upon His disciples, the 
exalted idea which He had imparted of Himself to 
His immediate witnesses, the extraordinary influence 
which He had exerted upon the primitive Church 
and which has not ceased to make itself felt in the 
lives of individuals and in the history of the world at 
large. 

The historical character of the entire Synoptic pic- 
ture of Jesus is, then, well attested. The dim light 
that suffuses His divinity comes not from a process 
of later idealization ; whilst His human character is 
placed in such bold relief as to afford a very con- 
vincing proof that these accounts were immune 
from theological tendencies. But if, although the early 
Christians believed in a glorious Christ who was the 
true Son of God and true God, the Saviour himself 
is represented as manifesting His true personal char- 
acter with such discretion and reserve ; if He is said 
to have, usually called Himself "the Son of Man," a 
title which, probably. He alone employed to designate 
Himself, and which nobody else, not even the early 
Christians, apparently ever applied to Him; if, in 
relation to God, He is yet said to have uttered such 



54 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

human expressions as those complaisantly alleged 
by modern critics, such as : " Why callest thou me 
good? None is good but one, that is, God ... Of 
that day and hour, no man knoweth, neither the 
angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father. . . My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"; if, in 
fine. His disciples kept, of His agony, of the torments 
of His passion, of His death upon the cross, such a 
precise, and, so to speak, such a realistic memory 
which gives the humiliating details with no effort to 
dissemble or to idealize, but with startling truthful- 
ness : this is a sure guarantee of reliable and independ- 
ent Gospel history. 

In this connection, it may be noted that the title 
" Son of Man," which Jesus so often appHed to Him- 
self, is not used by the Evangelists themselves in 
those discourses which they composed. It is found 
only in a few texts which allude more or less directly 
to Daniel c. vii. 13; or, like Ac. c. vii. 56; Apoc. c. i. 
13 ; xiv. 14, to the Saviour's own expressions. Euse- 
bius, also, records it, as we find in the Fragment of 
Hegesippus on the Martyrdom of S. James.^ 

Dalman says " it is probable that substantially the 
same feeling which to-day deters the Church from 
naming and invoking Jesus as the ' Son of Man,' must 
have been active from the beginning." ^ 

Schmiedel remarks that the text of S. Mark, c. x. 
17; xiii, 32; -XV. 34, and others, such as Mt. c. xii. 
31, referring to the pardon of blasphemy against the 
Son of Man, as also Mk. c. iii. 21, where the Saviour's 
own kinsmen apparently deem Him to be the victim 
of insanity, " might be called the foundation-pillars 
of a truly scientific life of Jesus." ^ 

1 Hegesippus, Euseh. Ch. Hist., Bk. II, c. xxiii ; cf. Acts vii. 
56; Apoc. i. 13; xiv. 14; Daniel vii. 13; Lk. xxvi. 69; Mt. 
xxvi. 64. 

2 Dalman, The Words of Jesus, p. 252 ; Stanton, The Jewish 
and the Christian Messiah, 1886, p. 242. 

3 Schmiedel, art. : Gospels, E. B., par. 139, col. 1881, 



INTRODUCTION 



55 



Of the process of idealizing the Saviour's sacred 
humanity, JiiUcher says : " Nor was the Messiah who, 
in His night-watch in the Garden of Gethsemane, 
though His soul was sorrowful even unto death, yet 
won through prayer the strength to go forward to 
the end in spite of the blindness of His disciples, 
the wickedness of His foes, and the agony of a hor- 
rible death, — such a Messiah was not the creation of 
the idealizing fancy of any class of believers which 
would have employed far different colors. . . . Who 
could have possibly invented the story of the denial 
of Peter, for instance, or the cry of Jesus on the 
cross : ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
me?"'i 

" The teaching of our Lord," says Stanton, *' is 
much of it such as could have been given only by 
Himself in His own lifetime, or is marked by the 
prominence of terms and ideas which speedily came 
to be much in vogue in the Church. This serves to 
show that the character of the record generally can 
have been comparatively little affected by the thought 
and language of the Church in a subsequent gener- 
ation." 2 

In a similar strain, Batiifol thus states his opinion: 
" During the first generation, the Apostolic teaching 
rapidly developed into that theology which, to cite 
but two documents, had appeared in the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, (65 A. D.), and in the Epistle to the 
Romans, (58 A. D.), and which, moreover, to con- 
vey the content of this new world of ideas, had 
created a new mode of Hnguistic expression; but, 
strangely enough, the Synoptic accounts are free from 
all traces of such style and ideas : they retain such 
obsolete terms as * Son of Man,' applied to Jesus, 
although never by the Apostles themselves, or such ex- 

1 Jiilichcr, op. cit., pp. 371, ^yi. 

2 Stanton, art. : Gpspels, H. D., p. 248, 



56 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

planatory terms as ' Christ/ used as a synonym for 
' Messiah/ and not for ' Jesus/ of which the Apostles 
had deemed it the equivalent. The archaic character 
of the record given by the Synoptists attests the firm- 
ness of the tradition which they proclaim." ^ 

We may say, then, by way of conclusion, that on 
those points where we can readily make the im- 
portant comparison between the Synoptic gospels 
and the faith of the early Christians, the historical 
worth of the Evangelists is wonderfully evident, and 
that such evidence is a weighty argument in favor of 
the accuracy of the entire account presented in the 
four canonical Gospels. 

It is surely in keeping with the wisest and truest 
method of criticism to accept these gospels as we 
find them and to place the utmost confidence in their 
entire content. The famous Catholic scholar La- 
grange evidently commends such a method of pro- 
cedure when he says : " Instead of making, under the 
influence of a preconceived theory, a selection of so 
called primitive historical details, based upon a com- 
parison of texts, would it not be wiser, first of all, 
to take the documents just as they stand? "^ 

Outline of Work. — In our study of the Synoptic 
Christ we have the same purpose in view. The 
general basis for this essay is the gospel of S. Mark, 
which is commonly viewed as being the earliest, and 
the facts thereby supplied shall be completed when 
required by those afforded by the other Synoptists. 
The parallel texts, moreover, will be indicated, and 
the 4th edition of Nestle's New Testament in Greek 
used as a reference. 

In accordance with the requirements of modern 
criticism, we have endeavored to assure the authen- 

1 Batiffol, Je^us et L'Hist., p. i8. 

2 Lagrange, art.; Jesus et la Criti,: Bullet, de Lift, EccL, 
1904, p, 22, 



INTRODUCTION 



57 



ticity of special texts and to ground general con- 
clusions, not upon some rare and doubtful passages, 
but upon such a general survey as must necessarily 
rest upon that substantially historic basis which un- 
questionably underlies these writings. This study, 
moreover, is especially interesting in this : it will en- 
able us to examine closely the exactitude of the evan- 
gelical records on the very point in which such an 
examination should be both very easy to make and 
leading to conclusive results, namely on the value of 
the historical portrait of Christ Son of God. 

We have sought to outline the Messianic hope at 
the dawn of the Christian era, to show in what light 
the Messiah was portrayed, what idea people had of 
His mission, especially of His suffering destiny, what 
they thought of Him, particularly of His divine 
character, and next to consider the Alessianic manifes- 
tation alike at the crib of Bethlehem as during the 
childhood of Christ. This study will follow the texts 
of the gospels according to SS. ]\Iatthew and Luke 
respectively, the historical value of which we have 
also sought to establish both by the aid of internal 
criticism and by the very character of the Saviour's 
recorded revelations of Himself. 

Next in order comes Jesus' public life. x\nd here 
we meet with the vital question at issue between in- 
fidelity and the Christian faith, namely. Did Jesus 
claim to be the expected Messiah? Like other Ra- 
tionalists, Renan admits as much, and, in fact, the 
personal manifestation of Jesus as the ^lessiah shall 
appear to us as carrying along with itself the irrefut- 
able proof of its own authenticity. 

A hard problem, a real stumbling-block is also 
presented in the further query: What is the source 
of Jesus' conviction of His Messiahship? Some 
would explain it, as did Renan, to be the merely human 
evolution of His ideas under the natural influence 
of His surroundmgs. But such an explanation is wholly 



58 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

out of proportion with the actual facts, although it is 
the most clever, the most captivating, the most artis- 
tically set forth theory which rationalism has ever 
been able to produce. Liberal Protestants, also, 
while not denying the reality of Jesus' Messiahship, 
adduce a theory on this point which is very like 
Renan's, but, as will be seen, is not based either upon 
an accurate criticism of the Gospel documents. 

Here is, finally, the capital question : In what sense 
did Jesus call Himself the Son of God ? Can we con- 
clude, from the Synoptical Gospels critically inter- 
preted, that Jesus manifested Himself as the true Son 
of God, and that, consequently. He was really con- 
scious of being God? Some critics, Renan among 
them, say No ; while, in his wake we notice critics of 
the Liberal Protestant school, and more recently Al- 
fred Loisy. 

The Synoptic testimony, therefore, will be discussed 
in detail. From special texts which will be shown to be 
authentic although Loisy, especially, has questioned this 
very point ; from the sum-total of the Gospel texts, as 
also from the most historically assured portions of 
the Saviour's discourses, we will see that Jesus was 
aware of His divinity, and that in His discourses He 
revealed this doctrine cautiously although sufficiently. 
Moreover, this personal manifestation of Christ as 
Son of God is, as we shall see, of such a character as 
to carry along with it, just as His Messianic mani- 
festation, the visible proofs, not only of its historical 
truthfulness, but of its intrinsic correspondence with 
facts. 

May this study help to strengthen those who al- 
ready possess the grace of faith, to further enlighten 
those who are loyally seeking the truth! May it 
serve to make better known and more fondly loved 
Him who, above all others, should be known and 
loved, Jesus, the Messiah, Son of pod, true God ancj 
true Man! 



CHAPTER I. 

The Dawn of Christianity. 

The Messianic Hope. — For over fifty years, 
Palestine had been a tributary kingdom of the Ro- 
man Empire. The princely successors of Judas Mac- 
cabaeus had fallen into so many internal disputes that 
a Roman army under the command of Pompey was 
despatched to Jerusalem, and in 63 B. C, this great 
Roman general captured the Holy City. But as 
Palestine still continued to enjoy a semblance of poli- 
tical liberty, the Maccabean princes, despite their many 
troubles, maintained their influence even while under 
the suzerainty of Rome. Soon, however, namely in 
40 B. C, an obscure foreigner, Herod the Idumean, 
was given the title of King of Judea by the Roman 
Senate. Finally, less than fifty years later, even that 
shadow of autonomy disappeared. For, after a short 
reign, Archaelaus, son of Herod the Great, was de- 
posed in the year 6 A. D. ; the kingdom of Judea be- 
ing thereupon annexed to the vast province of Syria. 
Thenceforth a Roman procurator, acting as Vicar of 
the Provincial Legate in Syria, ruled the ancient realm 
of David, and thus was destroyed forever the inde- 
pendence of God's chosen people. 

And yet Israel, even whilst groaning under the 
yoke of the despised pagans and amidst despairing 
grief and the throes of wrath, still clung to an un- 
conquerable hope. Israel was awaiting the Messiah, 
the Son of David whom the Prophets had foretold, 
the Supreme King foretold ages before, the Peace and 

(59) 



6o CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Joy vouchsafed to earth, the dawn of God's eternal, 
world-wide reign. 

How intense was this hope may be seen from every 
page of the gospels, beginning with the records of 
the childhood of Christ. Thus, whilst watching their 
flocks upon the heights of Bethlehem, the Shepherds 
knew full well the meaning of the glad tidings 
heralded by the Angel : " This day is born to you a 
Saviour who is Christ the Lord." And forthwith, 
without seeking further explanation, they hastened 
to the spot indicated. Within the precincts of the 
Temple itself, the Prophetess Anna had told of the 
Messiah to all who were expecting the near redemp- 
tion of Jerusalem from its pagan bondage. And 
when the Wise Men from the East, on reaching the 
gate of the Holy City, had asked : " Where is He that 
is born King of the Jews?", they were at once under- 
stood; for, amid the general excitement, Herod be- 
sought the chief priests and the scribes to tell him 
" where Christ should be born." ^ 

The story of the Saviour's public life, moreover, 
attests the depth of this expectancy. " He who is 
to come. . . . He who cometh " : thus is the Messiah 
often styled. From the Jordan's banks, the Baptist 
had hardl^^ proclaimed his message, " Behold, the 
Kingdom of God is at hand," when the people took 
that austere hermit for the expected Messiah. John 
soon dispels their illusion; but the hope in the Mes- 
siah's coming grows the more ardent within the hearts 
of his disciples. When Jesus of Nazareth appears in 
His turn, astounding the people by His miracles and 
eliciting their wonder by His discourses, immediately 
the great question is asked: Is He not the Messiah? 
People recall the traditional Messianic ideas and even 
consult the teaching of the Doctors of the Law con- 
cerning the Christ. And, afterwards, on His entry 

1 Lk. ii. II, 38; Mt, ii. 14. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 61 

into Jerusalem as the Messiah -King, He received 
from the multitude an ovation, at once generous 
and enthusiastic, which, while in contrast with His 
former reserve in asserting His Messiahship, never- 
theless serves to bear eloquent testimony to the 
influence which the hope in the promised Messiah 
had acquired in popular esteem. The ardor of 
this prevailing persuasion was also shown when 
the- Sanhedrin questioned Jesus concerning His self- 
asserted character of " Christ," and when the rabble 
uttered its shouts of derision at the crucified King of 
Israel upon the summit of Calvary.^ 

The history of the early Church, finally, as found 
in the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles and other 
writings of the New Testament, fully shows how 
wonderfully strong the belief in Christ the Saviour 
was in the hearts of the Jews. The Apostles con- 
stantly appeal to the Messianic idea. Their chief 
care is to prove that whatever the Prophets had fore- 
told of Christ, Jesus had realized ; that He is surely the 
Messiah expected and so ardently desired.- 

Such is the character of the testimony afforded by 
the Gospels and other parts of the New Testament to 
the condition of the Messianic belief at the beginning 
of Christianity. The documents in its favor give 
proofs of their well-established historical value, and 
their testimony is so outspoken and sincere that no 
sane critic thinks of disregarding their veracity on 
this point. 

Nor is the evidence presented by the various pro- 
fane documents which bear upon the origins of Chris- 
tianity less interesting to read. The careful investiga- 

1 Mt. xi. 3; Lk. vii. 20; Jo. vi. 14; Lk. iii. 15; Jo. i. 19, 25; 
Mt. xii. 23; xvii. 10; Mk. ix. 10; Jo. vii. 26, 31; x. 24; xii. 34;" 
Mk. xi. and par. ; cf. Mt. ix. 27 ; Mk. x. 47 and par. ; Mk. 
xiv. 61 ; Mt. xxvi. 62, ; Mk. xii. 32 ; Mt. xxvii. 39 ; Lk. xxiii. 35. 

2 Ac. iii. 18; V. 42; viii. 37; ix. 22; xvii. 3; xviii. 5; xxviii. 
etc. 



62 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

tions to which they have been submitted, chiefly during 
the second half of the nineteenth century, fully support 
the testimony given by the Sacred Scriptures/ Three 
writings, especially, preserve an echo of the Messianic 
hope during the years prior to Christ's advent: the 
Book of Enoch, the Psalter of Solomon, and the 
Sibylline Oracles. 

The Book of Enoch, named after the famous 
Patriarch, is supposed to contain his revelation • of 
the future judgment of the world. In its entirety, 
it is the work of a Jewish writer of the second cen- 
tury B. C, although the middle portion is perhaps 
the interpolation of a later editor. In the oldest 
section, i. e., c. xc, the Messianic kingdom and the 
New Jerusalem is described. The Messiah is repre- 
sented as a King living amidst his people, and is sym- 
bolized under the image of a white bull with long 
black horns. The pagans, who assume the figure of 
animals, pray to Him and are converted to the Lord.^ 
In the lattei* part of the book, the Messiah appears as 
the Son of Man foretold by Daniel, pre-existing with 
God, by whom he was held in reserve, even before 
the beginning of the world, and finally descending 
from heaven in order to manifest Himself on earth. ^ 

This Book is not extant in its original Hebrew text. 
An Ethiopic version, found about 1800 A. D. among 
the Canonical Books of the Church of Abyssinia, was 
edited by Dillman in 1851. The favorite edition of 
the text is that of J. Flemming. The best versions are 

1 Schiirer, op. cit., vol. ii, par. 29, pp. 496-556, 3rd ed., 1898 
Holtzmann, H., Lehrb., vol. i, 68-85, 1897; Volz, op. cit., 1903 
Bousset, Die Relig. des Jud., 1903 ; Baldensperger, Die Mess 
Apok., 1903; Stanton, The Jewish and Christian Messiah 
1886 ; art. : Messiah, H. D. ; Drummond, The Jewish Messiah 
1877; Briggs, The Messiah of the Gospels, 1894. 

2 Hen., xc. 37-38 ; Charles, Book of Enoch, 1893, p. 258 and 
notes. 

3 Hen., xlviii. 2; Ixii. 5-9; Ixix. 27; Charles, ihid., pp. 133, 
164, 182. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 63 

those of Charles, Beer, Flemming, and Radermacher. 
Our citations are based upon a comparison of the texts 
of Charles and Flemming.^ Modern critics admit 
that the Book has a composite character, the Symbolic 
Discourses being considered the work of a later writer. 
Beer claims that the oldest sections should be dated 
before 167 B. C. ; and the later parts before 64 B. C. 
Charles places c. i.-xxxvi as earher than 170 B. C. ; 
c. Ixxxiii-xc to 166-161 B. C. ; c. xc-civ to 134-95 B. C. ; 
the latter section, c. xxxvii-lxx to either 94-79 B. C, 
or 70-64 B. C. Baldensperger assigns the Symbohc 
Discourses to the end of Herod's reign, and the rest 
of the work to about fifty years later. While Kilgen- 
feld, Volkmar, Keim, and Vernes regard c. xxxvii- 
Ixxi as being influenced by Christian ideas and as an 
interpolation made about 390 A. D. Schiirer dates 
c. xc about 95 A. D., while he says that the date of 
c. xxxvii-lxxi is very uncertain.^ 

The Psalter of Solomon first appeared about 80-40 
B. C. It is a collection of eighteen chants, or 
Psalms, fictitiously ascribed to the great monarch of 
Israel, but really composed by pious Jews shortly after 
Pompey's conquest of Palestine in 63 B. C. Of these 
Psalms, two are particularly remarkable for their 
Messianic ideas. 

The author of Ps. 17, taking as his model our 
Psalms 89 and 132, complains to God because of the 
sad situation into which, in his day, the chosen nation 
has fallen. Still, he is hopeful. And despite the 
fact that the national dynasty is corrupt and is giv- 

iDillmann, Liber Henoch, 1851 ; Flemming, Das Buck 
Enoch, 1902, Ethiopic text; Charles, op. cit.; Beer, apiid 
Kaiitzsch's Die Apok. u. Pseiidepigraphen des A. T., vol. ii, 
1900, pp. 217-310; Flemming and Radermacher, Das Buch 
Enoch, German tr., 1901. 

2 Beer, op. cit.; art.: Enoch, H. D., p. 706; art.: Apoc. Lit- 
erature, E. B., col. 222; Baldensperger, op. cit.; Schiirer, op. 
cit., p. 200. 



64 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ing way before the foreign invader, he beseeches 
the Lord to raise up unto His people a Prince of the 
House of David. He sings : " Raise up unto them, 
in the day that Thou knowest, a Son of David for their 
King, who shall rule over Israel thy servant" (v. xxiii). 
This King, as he calls him, is *' Christ the Lord," or the 
'' Anointed of the Lord." He is a just king and 
taught of God (v. xxxv) ; free from all sin and holy 
(vs. xH and xlvi). God, by His Holy Spirit, has 
made Him powerful and wise (v. xlii). He shall 
judge the tribes of the nations and shall not suffer 
injustice among them. He will gather together a 
perfect people whom He himself shall lead in right- 
eousness and holiness (v. xxviii). In Ps. 17, we 
find the same Messianic prayer. The Messiah's ad- 
vent is near. Happy they who shall be alive on the 
day of His coming, who shall see the inauguration of 
the New Kingdom! " May God purify Israel for the 
day of mercy wherein He has made ready to bless us : 
for the chosen day when He shall lead forth the 
Messiah. Happy they who in those days shall see the 
blessings that the Lord will give to the coming race, 
under the teaching sceptre of the Lord Messiah " 
(v. vi-viii). 

The Psalter of Solomon was originally written in 
Hebrew. These Psalms are now extant only in Greek 
and were first published in the year 1626 by the 
Spanish Jesuit Louis de la Cerda. Swete inserts 
them in his edition of the Old Testament according 
to the Septuagint.^ The text edited by Ryle and 
James is the one we have employed.^ These editors, 
as also Charles, date them, at the latest, from 70-40 
B. C. ; and Schiirer, from 63-40 B. C.^ 

1 Swete, Old Test., in Greek, vol. iii, p. 765. 

2 Ryle and James, Psalms of the Pharisees, 1891, p. Ixiv. 

3 Charles art. : Apoc. Literature, E. B., col. 2431 ; Schiirer, 
op. cit., vol. iii, p. 153. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 65 

The Sibylline Oracles, arranged by numerous com- 
pilers, also manifest the like Messianic expectation 
in that part written by a Jewish editor. Along with 
the appearance of the Kingdom of God on earth, there 
was announced the Advent of a Holy King, a Prince 
without reproach, who should reign over the world 
and hold the sceptre of the nations throughout the 
eternal years. These Books, or Oracles, are a col- 
lection of oracular sayings placed up on the lips of 
the Pagan Sibyl, although, in fact, composed by vari- 
ous persons. Pagans, Jews, and Christians at different 
periods. The entire work is written in Greek hexa- 
meter verse, and has been edited by Alexander, Rzach, 
and Geffcken.^ The Jewish portions are assigned by 
Schiirer and Charles to sometime before the Chris- 
tian era. Thus, B. 3. v. xcvii-cxviii, about 140 B. C. ; 
B. 3. V. xxxvi-xcii (Schiirer), or B. 3. v. i-lxii 
(Charles), about 30 B. C.^ 

These three ancient documents, therefore, preserved 
as they have been from the ravages of time, suffice to 
show, during the epoch previous to the dawn of the 
Christian era, the vividness of the Messianic hope, 
of which, doubtless, they afford but a faint reflection. 

During the first half of the first century of the 
Christian era, we find few writings, apart from the 
Gospels, that inform us about the Messianic hope. 
But the coming of the Kingdom of God is described in 
terms of a beautiful inspiration in both the "Assump- 
tion of Moses," a sort of prophecy of Israel's future 
which a Jewish writer, shortly before 50 B. C, as- 
signed to Moses, the great Hebrew legislator, and 
also in the " Book of Jubilees," which dates from 
about the same period. The former work, probably 
written in Hebrew, or in Aramaic, is extant only in 

^Alexandre, Orac. Sib., 1891 ; Geffcken, Orac. Sib., 1902. 
2 Schiirer, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 434; Charles, art.: Apoc. Lit., 
E. B., col. 247. 

5 



66 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the Latin text, derived from the Greek, and first pub- 
lished by Ceriani. Schiirer dates it at the first ten 
years after the death of Herod the Great, namely 
from 4 B, C. — 6 A. D. Charles whose English ver- 
sion is so excellent, assigns it at y B. C. — 30 A. D.^ 

The " Book of Jubilees," or the Little Genesis, was 
first written in Hebrew. It is extant only in versions, 
chiefly the Ethiopic and the Latin, composed respec- 
tively by Charles and Ceriani. Schiirer dates it dur- 
ing the first century A. D., probably just before the 
Fall of Jerusalem. Charles, after placing its ex- 
treme Hmits to 60 B. C. — 70 A. D., prefers a date 
nearer the former and suggests even 40-10 B. C, or 
even 135-96 B. C. After Charles had published his 
translation, Schiirer admitted his own dating as being 
too late, although not accepting that of Charles. 
Baldensperger places it after 63 B. C, namely, durmg 
the interval following Pompey^s capture of Jerusalem.^ 

But from the middle and end of the first century, 
many testimonies bear the echo of the Messianic hope 
animating the Jews of Christ's time. The frequent 
popular revolts in the political and religious sphere 
are enough to show how anxiously the people expected 
God's miraculous intervention and the advent of His 
kingdom on earth. Josephus testifies that the Mes- 
sianic hope was one of the greatest levers in the great 
revolt against Rome which ended in Jerusalem's fall. 
He, who lived in Caesar's court, feared not to apply 
to Vespasian himself the Messianic prophecies.^ 

1 Ceriani, Monumenta, vol. i, fasc. i, pp. 55-64; Charles, 
The Assumption of Moses, 1897; art.: Apoc. Lit., E. B., col. 
1235; Schiirer, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 218. 

2 Charles, The Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of 
Jubilee, 1895; art: Apoc. Lit., E. B., col, 213, 232; The Book 
of Jubilees, 1902; Ceriani, op. cit., vol. i, fasc. i, pp. 15-54; 
Schurer, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 277 ; art. : Theol. Zeitung, Dec. 5, 
1903. 

3 Flavins Josephus, Jewish War, Bk. VI, cs. iv and v ; Taci- 
tus, Hist., Bk. V, c. xiii; Suetonius, Vespasian, c. iv. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY ey 

The fall of Jerusalem, however, did not shatter the 
great hope. That hope was still most ardent towards 
the end of the first century A. D., as we learn from 
writings like " The Apocalypse of Baruch," the 
''Apocalypse of Esdras," or the " Fourth Book of 
Esdras." 

The "Apocalypse of Baruch," probably first written 
in Hebrew, is extant only in Syriac. Ceriani, in 1871, 
published the Syriac text after having made a Latin 
version from the same in 1846. Schiirer assigns it 
to shortly after the fall of Jerusalem. Charles dates 
it between 50-90 B. C.^ 

The "Apocalypse of Esdras," teaches that the 
Messiah exists in heaven. God calls Him " His Son," 
and was to send him forth at the moment fixed by 
His sovereign will. " My son, said the Lord, My 
son, the Messiah, shall be revealed with those who 
are on His side. . , . None on earth can see my son, 
neither those who are with him, until the day that is 
set." ^ This work was originally composed in Greek, 
or as some critics hold, in Hebrew, and is extant in 
various versions. The Latin version is placed as an 
Appendix at the end of the canonical Latin Vulgate. 
It has been edited by Bensly and James. Most 
critics date it between 81-96 B. C.^ 

The " Shemoneh Esreh," or daily prayer of the 
Jews, received a definite form about the same epoch. 
It was also called Hatephillah or the Eighteen Bene- 
dictions. Its basic elements are older than its present 

^Ceriani, op. cit., vol. v, fasc. 2, pp. 1 13-180, 1871, Syriac 
text; op. cit., vol. i, _f asc. 2, pp. 73-98, 1866, Latin text; 
Schurer, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 229; Charles, The Apocalypse of 
Baruch, 1896; art.: Apoc. Lit., E. B., col. 217. 

2 IV Esdras, c. vii, vs. 28 and 29 ; c. xiii, v. 52. 

3 Bensly and James, T/i^ Fourth Book of Ezra, 1895; 
Schurer, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 243 ; James, art. : Esdras, E. B., 
col. 1393; Thackeray, art.: Esdras, Second Book of, H. D., 
p. 765. 



68 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

form, and afford a valuable insight into the Jewish 
mind during the first years of the Christian era. Its 
text is to be found in all Jewish prayer-books. In 
Schiirer's opinion, it reached its present form about 
70-100 A. D., its basis being certainly much earlier.^ 

Each section of the " Shemoneh Esreh " contains a 
supplication for the re-establishment of God's people 
and the restoration of the Holy City by the Messiah, 
the Son of David. In the loth Benediction the pious 
Jew prays : " Sound the trumpet to announce our de- 
liverance. Raise up a standard to reassemble our 
captains together and to reunite us from the four 
quarters of the earth. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, 
who gathereth together the exiles of Thy people 
Israel . . . Oh, set up again our judges as hereto- 
fore, our Councillors as at the beginning . . . Do 
Thou alone, O Lord, reign over us in grace and mercy, 
and justify us. Blessed be Thou, O Lord King, for 
Thou lovest righteousness and justice. . . . Upon 
Jerusalem, thy city, look down with compassion, and 
dwell in her according to thy promise. . . . Rebuild 
her without delay, in our day and forever. Set up 
again within her the throne of David. Blessed be 
Thou, O Lord, who rebuildeth Jerusalem. . . . Make 
the offspring of David, thy servant, come forth with- 
out delay. Let his horn rise up in the day of thy sal- 
vation. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, our God, who 
makest the horn of salvation spring forth." ^ This ex- 
pression, the horn, is taken as the symbol of power. 
Hence, the horn of salvation is the saving power, or 
the Powerful Saviour. Again we read : " Be pleased, 
O Lord, our God, in thy people Israel and in his 
prayers: Re-establish the sacrifices in the Holy of 
Holies, in Thy house. Receive our offerings and en- 
treaties with love. Let the worship of Israel, thy 

1 Schiirer, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 463. 

2 Berakah, 11, 14, 15, 17; cf. Lk. i. 69. 



THE DAWX OF CHRISTIANITY 69 

people, please thee forever. Oh, that our eyes may 
see Thy return to Sion full of mercy. Blessed be 
Thou, O Lord, who restoreth Thy glory to Sion." ^ 

The Targums, also, betray the last phases of the 
Messianic hope. As is well known, these writings 
are a transliteration, or rather a paraphrase of the 
Bible in the popular language, the Aramaic. The 
Targums on the Pentateuch and on the Prophets are 
attributed to Onkelos, and Jonathan Ben Uzziel, two 
Rabbis of the first century. In their present form, 
these Targums were not probably edited before the 
third or fourth century of the Christian era ; but, their 
claim to a greater antiquity is supported by the fact 
that they are based upon earlier writings and remote 
traditions of Jewish commentators, or targumists. 
Hence these Targums may inform us about the rab- 
binical teaching which was current in pre-Christian as 
well as in gospel times.. We may note that the Tar- 
gum editors interpret many texts in the Law and in the 
Prophets as referring to the Messiah. - 

The Rabbinic Bible of Bomberg and Buxtorf gives 
the texts of the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan. 
So also does the Polygot Bible of London ^ give a 
critical edition of the former by Berhner, and of the 
second by Lagarde. The Targum of Onkelos on the 
Pentateuch, says Walker, is apparently the work of 
several editors, and may have been compiled, at least in 
part, during the second or third century after Christ. 
The Targum on the Prophets ascribed to Jonathan, 
was edited finally only in the fifth century A. D. 
Both Targums, says Noldeke, w^ere finally edited and 
officially canonized only in the fourth or fifth century. 

1 Schiirer, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 461 ; Dalman, The Words of 
Jesus, 1903, p. 350. 

2 Bomberg and Buxtorf, Rabbinic Bibles; Polyglot Bible 
of London; Berliner, Targum Onkelos, 2 vols., 1884, Lagarde, 
Prophetae Chaldaice, 1872. 

3 Buxtorf, Lexicon Chaldaicum, col. 1268- 1273. 



70 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

A. D. If both were published only in the third or 
fourth century, says Schiirer, they were probably 
based on former works. They were the result of the 
gradual development of many centuries. Thus, at the 
end of the second century, the " Mishna " already 
supposes Chaldean versions of the Bible. The New 
Testament, also, quite agrees with the Targums in 
its manner of rendering some texts " concerning the 
Elder." This proves that the Targums, taken as a 
whole, were composed as early as the Apostolic Age. 
The " Targnm on Job," is explicitly mentioned just 
before the fall of Jerusalem. Our extant " Targums " 
also have fragments of the period of John Hyrcanus 
(103-105 A. D.). The modern Targums are evidently, 
then, made up of gradual accretions from many gen- 
erations and depend upon early writings.^ 

Thus, Onkelos sees the expected Messiah in the 
" Seed of the Woman " who was to crush the serpent, 
and in the mysterious personage who seems to be 
announced in the prophecy of Jacob to Juda. " The 
sceptre shall not depart from Juda, nor the ruler's staff 
from between His feet : Until Shiloh come, and the peo- 
ple obey Him." ^ The term "Shiloh," which the Tar- 
gum identifies with the " Messiah," is even now a very 
obscure expression. Some have translated by " the re- 
pose " : The Vulgate reads Shiloah, or, the Envoy, or 
messenger.^ If the Hebrew text be read: Shelo, it 
means: "He to whom" (the sceptre should belong). 
So too, in the royal star which Balaam sees rising 
from the midst of Israel : " I shall see Him ; but not 
now: I shall behold Him, but not near. A star shall 
rise out of Jacob, a sceptre shall spring up from 
Israel." * 

1 Walker, art. : Targum, H. D., p. 679 ; Noldecke, art. : 
Aramaic Language, E. B., col. 283; cf. Ephes. iv. 8. 

2 Gen. iii. 15 ; Ixix. 10. 

3 Aglen, art. : Shiloh, H. D., pp. 500 and 501, 
* Numbers xxiv. 17, 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY yi 

Jonathan, also, when interpreting the Prophets, ex- 
pressly identifies the Emmanuel with the Messiah. 
The Emmanuel is the one promised by God to His 
chosen people; the child who is to bring an eternal 
peace to the world; the flower of the royal root of 
Jesse upon whom shall dwell the Spirit of the Lord ; the 
ruler rising from Bethlehem, and whose origin goes 
back to the ancient days, to the Days of Eternity; 
the chosen servant in whom God places His confidence 
and who is to establish on earth the reign of justice 
and mercy, who is to be clothed, in the eyes of people 
and kings, with incomparable glory, although only 
after suffering humiliation and atoning pain/ 

The sufferings of the Servant of Jaweh, the aton- 
ing victim of his people, are described in c. liii of 
Isaiah. The Targum of Jonathan, in emphasizing 
his great and glorious character, did not venture to 
apply to Him the marks of humiliation and of suffer- 
ing portrayed in c. liii, although the Prophet had fully 
in view, here and there, the same Servant of Jehovah ; 
but, the Targumist illogically interprets this last chap- 
ter as referring to the Hebrew people itself. 

The faith of the Synagogue, intense and firm as it 
was, even at a time when it openly opposed the 
Church, can be ascribed only to an already ancient 
tradition. Thus does the whole collection of docu- 
ments, reflecting the thoughts of Jewish generations 
immediately following the Saviour's death, as also 
those wherein we find a true echo of the expectation 
filling the popular mind in the years just before the 
Christian era, evidently confirm the testimony of the 
Gospels. That is to say, when Jesus of Nazareth 
appeared, the Messianic hope was fermenting at times 
in the heart of the Jewish people, and all Israel was 
expectantly awaiting its Saviour. 

lis. vii. 14; ix. 5; xi. i; Micheas v. i; Is. Ixii. i; Hi. 13; 
c. liii; Zach. iii. 9; vi. 12. 



J2 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

What idea, however, had they of this Messiah so 
eagerly awaited? We must try to settle this point. 
The Messiah's Character and Mission.— The 

title " Messiah " implies the idea of a special divine 
consecration. The Hebrew term, Mashiah, or the 
Aramaic, Meshiha, really means Anointed or Sacred, 
hke the Greek, Christus, and the Latin, Unctus. This 
title had long been employed to designate those who 
had been consecrated by sacred unction, namely, the 
Kings of Israel, who were the theocratic sovereigns of 
the people of God. The title ''Anointed of the 
Lord," is applied both to Saul and to David. ^ 

He who w^as in an especial sense the ''Anointed 
of the Lord," seemed to the Jews to be a king, or 
rather, as " The King," the organizer and supreme 
sovereign of a royal kingdom, final and incomparably 
glorious. The Targums often refer to the Messiah 
King, or Malcha Meshiha. The Shemoneh Esreh 
views Him as a powerful Saviour who shall come to 
re-establish the throne of David and rebuild Jeru- 
salem. The Psalter of Solomon presents Him as the 
King of Israel, God's envoy for the deliverance of the 
Holy City from its oppressors, and who shall restore 
the throne of David and extend His kingdom over 
all nations. The Targums also frequently refer to 
the Messiah as the " Redeemer of Israel " who was 
to re-establish the chosen people in their rights, to 
deliver them from foreign oppression, to bring peace 
ancj prosperity. The Saviour is recognized as the 
^' Christ " ; hence they wish to forcibly lead Him to 
Jerusalem " to make Him king." On His triumphal 
entry therein, they hail Him as " the King of Israel," 
the " King who cometh in the name of the Lord." 
The Jewish populace, also, under the title of the "King 

^i Sam. xii. 3, 5; xxiv. 7, 11; xxvi. 9, 11, 16, 23; 2 Sam, 
xxiii. i; cf. Ps. ii. 2; xviii. 51; xx. 7; xxviii. 8; Ixxxiv. 10; 
Ixxxix. 39, 52; cxxxii. 17; Habaeuc iii. 13; Lamen, iv, 20; 
Dalman, op. cit., p. 288. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



n 



of Israel," mockingly salute Him as He hangs upon 
the Cross, while the foreigners, in derision, call Him 
" King of the Jews." ^ 

The national traditions of Israel imply that the 
Kingdom claimed for Christ was, in a way, embodied 
in the name of David. It was to David that the 
Lord made this wondrous promise : " Thy house and 
thy kingdom shall be made sure forever. Thy throne 
shall be made firm forever." " His throne shall stand 
before me as the sun; as the moon it shall be unto 
everlasting." The Messiah-King was to be born 
of the race of David: He it is who was to re- 
store the throne of His Father, and to assure to His 
kingdom the eternity promised by the Lord.^ 

The Psalter of Solomon, also, portrays '* Christ the 
Lord," or the " Christ of the Lord," as a king, the 
Son of David. The Targum of Jonathan sees the 
Messiah in the " Stem arising from the Root of 
Jesse," in the " Righteous Branch " arisen unto the 
house of David. The Shemoneh Esreh beseeches the 
swift appearance of the *' Branch " of the great king. 
And Jesus Himself says to the multitude: How do 
the Scribes say that Christ is the Son of David? 
From the moment that He is recognized as the Messiah 
He is acclaimed under the title: Hosanna to the Son 
of David. Blessed is He who cometh in the name of 
the Lord. Blessed be the kingdom of our father 
David that cometh.^ In the tradition, moreover, of 
the Jewish interpreters of the Scripture, the Messiah 
was to be born in the very native-land of David, at 

1 Lk. ii. 38; Jo. vi. 14; Lk. xviii. 38; Jo. xii. 13; cf. Jo. i. 
48; Mk. XV. 32; Mt. xxvii. 39; Mk. xv. 9, iS, 2^\ Lk. xxiii. 
35; Jo. xviii. 2>2>, Z7, 39; xix. 3, 15, 19, 21; Mt. ii. 2. 

22 Sam. vii. 16; Ps. Ixxxix. 35. 

3 Psalt. Solomon xvii. 5, 23 ; Is. xi. i ; Jer. xxiii. 5 ; xxxiii, 
15; Shemoneh Esreh, 15th Berak. ; Mk. xii. 35; Mk. xi. 10; Mt. 
xxi. 2, 9; Lk. xix. 38; cj. Mt. xiii. 23; ix, 27; xx. 30; Mk, x, 
ly ; Lk. jcviji. 38, 



74 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Bethlehem of Juda. Hence, the doctors of the Law, 
relying upon the prophecy of Micheas, reply to 
Herod: ''And thou, Bethlehem, land of Juda, art not 
the least among the princes of Juda; for out of 
thee shall come forth the captain that shall rule 
my people of Israel." So too, when the news spread 
abroad among the multitude that this Jesus, the pro- 
phet of Nazareth in Galilee, might likely be the 
Messiah, the objection was made: What, then, doth 
the Christ come forth from Galilee? Hath not the 
Scripture said that the Christ cometh of the seed of 
David, and from Bethlehem ? ^ 

The Messiah, however, was not regarded merely as 
a conquering king and ruler like the ancient sover- 
eigns of Israel who He was to succeed on the throne 
of David. He was also looked upon as the Envoy of 
God, the Elect of the Most High, the Prophet par 
excellence. The prophetic spirit implied the knowl- 
edge of secret things, past, present, or future. Christ, 
then, the greatest Prophet, was to signalize Himself 
by His supernatural knowledge. It is precisely be- 
cause Nathaniel knows that Jesus reveals the secrets 
of His inmost soul that he exclaims with much emo- 
tion : " Master, thou art the Son of God ; thou art 
the King of Israel." The Samaritan woman, also, al- 
leges to her compatriots, as a token of the Saviour's 
messiahship, the fact that He had just revealed to her 
all her past conduct : " Come and see a man who has 
told me all that I have done. Is He not the Christ?" 
So too, the soldiers in the Pretorium felt that they 
could ridicule Jesus' messianic claims in no surer way 
than by blind-folding Him and calling upon Him, as 
the Christ, to tell who had struck Him.^ 

As prophet, the Messiah was also a great wonder- 

1 Targ Jonath., in Micheas v. 8; Mt. ii. 6; Jo. vii. 41. 

2 Jo. iv. 29; Lk. vii. 39; Jo. i. 48; iv. 24; Mt. xxvi. 67; Lk. 
xxii. 64. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



75 



worker. " When the Christ shall come, will He do 
more signs?" Thus the people wondered after wit- 
nessing the Saviour's miracles. It was, also, certainly a 
proof of His Messiahship that the Pharisees demanded 
from Jesus when they asked Him for " a sign from 
heaven." Nor is there anything more ironical than 
the provoking questions which the people put to 
Him who had claimed to be the Messiah : " Let Christ 
the King of Israel now come down from the Cross, 
that we may see and beHeve in Him. . . . He saved 
others: let Him save himself if He be the Christ of 
God, the elect." ^ 

The Messiah's mission was to display such eminent 
qualities. Hence it would be not only a kingly and 
ruling, but also a doctrinal and religious mission. In 
the Psalter of Solomon, the Messiah is a king free 
from sin, a great king taught of God, and to whom 
the Lord hath given the power of the Holy Spirit, 
wisdom and prudence and justice. He was to as- 
semble together a holy people, and in their midst He 
would not allow iniquity to dwell. He was to destroy 
sinners by the power of His word. The holy people 
whom He shall assemble. He will lead in justice and 
holiness. He would rule Israel in the fear of God, in 
the wisdom of the Spirit, in righteousness and power. 
He would direct men in the way of justice, inspiring 
them all with the fear of God. And this mission of 
justice and hoHness shall be universal. He will judge 
the nations and peoples in the wisdom of His equity. 
He shall hold under His yoke the nations to serve 
Him ; and He shall glorify the Lord over all the sur- 
face of the earth.2 

The Book of Enoch, also, describes in an allegorical 
vision the pagan nations as beseeching the Messiah and 
becoming converted to the true God. 

1 Jo. vii. 31 ; Mk. viii. 11 ; xv. 32; Mt. xxvii 39; Lk. xxiii. 35. 

2 Psalt. Solom. xvii. and xviii ; cf. Orac. Sib., vol. iii, 49 ; 
agnos anax (ayvof dva^). 



76 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

In the Sibylline Oracles, the Jewish Sibyl portrays 
the Messianic kingdom as an eternal one which ex- 
tends throughout all nations and all parts of the 
world. Men shall bring their offerings to the Temple 
of God : The Lord shall dwell forever in Sion, and 
there shall reign universal peace on earth.^ 

Similarly, the magnificent predictions of the Pro- 
phets, but faintly echoed in the foregoing testimonies, 
refer to the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in 
the Messiah, to His position as lawgiver, teacher, and 
judge, to His work of enHghtenment and sanctification 
in behalf of mankind.^ 

It seems, indeed, that the woman of Samaria 
supposed that the mission of the Messiah would 
possess this very doctrinal and religious character; 
for, when Jesus spoke to her of the new kind of 
worship desired by His heavenly Father, she re- 
marked : " I know that the Messiah cometh ; when 
He is come. He will reveal unto us all things." And 
it was probably the same conviction that led people 
to imagine that it was the expected Messiah whom 
they saw and heard in the person of John the Baptist 
as he proclaimed the baptism of penance in the desert.^ 

" Wherever the moral and really religious elements 
had begun to get the upper hand," says Harnack, 
" people were forced to abandon the image of the 
political and warlike ruler, and let that of the prophet, 
which had always, to some extent, helped to form the 
general notions about the Messiah, take its place." * 

It is also the impression of O. Holtzmann that " the 
political aspect of the Messianic hope plays no great 
part in the Jewish literature of the New Testament 

1 Hen., c. xc. 2)7> 38 ; cf. Orac. Sib., vol. iii, 710-794. 

2 Is. ii., iv., xlii., xlix., li., Ivi., Ix., Ixi. ; Soph. ii. ; Jer. iii. and 
iv. ; Zach. c. viii. and ix. ; Ps. Ixxii. 

3 Jo. iv. 25; i. 19-25; Lk. iii. 15. 

* Harnack, What is Christianity f p. 147. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY yy 

period that has come down to us," and that '' far 
greater stress is laid upon the hohness of the 
Messiah." ^ 

Finally it is Baldensperger's opinion that the Jewish 
apocalyptic ideas current during the period preced- 
ing the Christian era present " the Messianic expecta- 
tion as freeing itself from the earthly political ideal 
and soaring into the region of the supernatural." ^ 

Christ, then, was the Man of God, par excellence, 
the Prophet who was to come into the world. In fact, 
the Rabbinic Tradition of the Targums beheld Him 
thus foretold in every page of the Scriptures. So that 
Philip the Apostle, one of the first called by Jesus to 
the apostolate, might well point Him out to Nathanael 
as the One " of whom Moses wrote, both in the Law 
and in the Prophets." ^ 

Kingly Destiny. — What opinion, we may ask, did 
the Jews have of the career of their expected Messiah 
and what events would mark the course of His hfe? 
On this point, the Jewish tradition was far from 
precise. It held that He would be born at Bethlehem, 
the city of the great king; but people said to them- 
selves : " When shall He come ? How will He in- 
augurate His reign ? " 

The prevailing belief was that He would appear 
only after some great prophet should officially herald 
His coming. Some, in fact, thought that one of the 
ancient prophets of Israel like Jeremias, for instance, 
would re-appear for this purpose. Others thought 
that the Messiah, whilst bearing some resemblance to 
the prophets of old, would Himself be a new prophet. 
Others, again, believed Him " the Prophet," foretold 
by Moses and often identified with the Messiah. But 
oftener the future herald of the expected Messiah 

1 Holtzmann, O., Life of Jesus, p. 123, n. ; art. : Neutesf. 
Zeitgeschichte, 1895, p. 243. 

2 Baldensperger, Die Mess. Apoc. Hoffnungen, 1903, p. 173. 

3 Jo. vi. 14; i. 45. 



78 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

was supposed to be Elias, whom the prophet Malachy 
had said would appear before the great day of the 
Lord. The Book of Ecclesiasticus also mentions Him 
as being ^' held in reserve for the time of judgment." 
Whilst, as the disciples themselves remark to Jesus, 
the Scribes and Pharisees had taught the people that 
" Elias was to come " before the advent of the Mes- 
siah. This is why, when John the Baptist declared 
he was not Christ, the Levites sent by the Pharisees 
ask him if, however, he were not Elias. The same 
opinion, in fact, was held by some among the multi- 
tudes concerning Jesus Himself.^ 

But it was also believed that the Messianic reign 
would begin only after a period of terrible suffering and 
great political commotions. Wars between the various 
nations, social disorders, domestic feuds, disturbances 
in nature, earthquakes, signs in the heavens, con- 
flagrations and famines: such are the events which 
shall precede the revelation of the Messiah and 
which, in Rabbinical teaching, are likened to the sor- 
rows of child-birth.^ The mission of EHas was in- 
tended to restore peace upon the earth and to reestab- 
lish social order. " His mission," says Rabbi Simon, 
" is to bring peace into the world. For it is written : 
* I send unto you Elias the Prophet.' " ^ The way 
being thus prepared, the Messiah Himself will appear 
suddenly. But as tradition had named Bethlehem as 
His birth-place, it was at first supposed that He would 
remain hidden and that He would reveal Himself un- 
expectedly. Hence, no doubt, the prevailing impres- 

1 Mt. xvi. 14; Lk. ix. 19; Mk. vi. 14; viii. 28; Jo. i. 19, 25; 
vii. 40; cf. Ac. iii. 32; vii. 27; Mai. iv. 5; Ecclus. xlviii. 10; 
Mk. ix. 10; Mt. xvii. 10; Jo. i. 19, 25; Mk. vi. 14; Mt. xiv. 2; 
Lk. ix. 7; Mk. viii. 22>; cf. Mk. xv. 35, z^', Mt. xxvii. 47, 49. 

2 Cf. the phrase; Hebelei ha Mashiah, z. e., the Suffering of 
the Messiah; cf. Mk. xiii. 9; Mt. xxiv. 8; Mai. iv. 5, 6. 

3 Ecclus, xlviii. 10; cf. Mishna, Eduioth, c. viii. 7. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 79 

sion as expressed in the text : '' When the Christ 
cometh, no man knoweth whence He is." ^ 

Some Jewish writers also tell us that it will be the 
official privilege of EHas to anoint the Messiah and 
to proclaim Him. In fact, S. Justin represents the 
Jew Trypho as expressing a thought which must rest 
upon an ancient Jewish tradition : " The Christ," he 
says, *' even when born and found somewhere or other, 
is still unknown. Indeed, He does not know His own 
destiny: He has no power until Elias come and con- 
secrate Him, and reveal Him to all. . . . We all await 
Christ who is to be a man among men, and Ehas 
who is to come to consecrate Him." ^ 

The Targum on Micheas says that the Messiah is 
present already, although still hidden because of the 
sins of the people. A relatively recent Talmudic 
legend says that the Messiah is born in Bethlehem at 
the moment of the destruction of the Temple, and 
receives the name Menahem, or Consoler. He is 
forcibly taken away from His mother and carried to 
Rome. There, at one of the city-gates, He remains 
surrounded by the unhappy and the sick whose wounds 
he soothes, awaiting calmly and quietly the day when 
the conversion of His people shall enable Him to 
reveal Himself.^ 

The Messianic kingdom should begin, we are told, 
with the " great day of the Lord." The ancient 
Prophets considered the *' Day of Jaweh," as the day 
wherein the Eternal should judge His people and the 
nations opposing them. Israel would be revenged upon 
its enemies : it would itself be chastened for its sins 
and be purified from every wicked element. Never- 
theless, apart from and beyond this first earthly judg- 
ment, ending with a national renewal or resurrection, 

1 Jo. vii. 27. 

2 Justin, Dial., c. viii ; cf. c. xlix. 

3 Targ., in Mich. iv. 8. 



go CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the Prophets foresaw at the end of time, after a gen- 
eral resurrection, a universal and final judgment of 
which the first was only the symbol and preparation, 
and at which all men, summoned to appear before 
God, would be eternally rewarded, each according 
to His deeds.^ 

Numerous texts of the Prophets point, in some way, 
to this solemn judgment which shall be executed by 
the future King, the Son of David, in whom tradition 
had long since beheld the Messiah. The Christ of 
God, therefore, is described as inaugurating His reign 
by a supreme judgment which was to destroy every 
hostile power.^ 

The popular notion of this Messianic judgment was 
very complex, inexact, and particularly materialistic. 
Some thought the Messiah was to lead His armies 
on a march against the pagan nations, the enemies 
of God and of His people.^ Philo had written : " He 
shall enter into the field ; He shall wage war, and He 
shall subdue nations numerous and powerful." * In 
one Targum we read : " How fair is He, the Messiah 
King, who proceedeth from the House of Juda. He 
girds His loins, takes the field, gives battle to His 

^ Day of the Eternal: Is. ii. 12; Ecclus. iii. 17; viii. 6; Is. 
xiii. 9; XXX. 27-33; Ixix. 16-19; Amos v. 18-20; Soph. c. i and 
ii ; Joel cc. i and ii ; Jer. xxx. 7 ; Ezech. cc. vii and xxx ; Zach. 
c. xiv; Mal. c. iv; Abdias i. 15; Idea of Judgment: Is. iii. 3; 
Ez. xxxix. 21; Joel c. iii; Dan. vii. 9, 26; Ps. ix. 8; Ixxv. 3; 
Ixxvi. 9; Ixxxii. 8; Ps. xciv and xcvi; Idea of Personal Re- 
surrection and of General and Final Judgment: Joel iii. 2; 
Dan. xii, 1-3; Ecclus. xii. 16; 2 Macchab. vii. 12, 43-46; Wisd. 
iii. 1-9 ; V. 16-24 ; Psalt. Solom. iii. 16 ; xiv. 2 ; Hen. Ixi. i ; 
4 Esdras vii. 32; Apoc. Baruch. xxx. 1-5; 1. i; Ii. 6; Test. 
XII Patr. Judae, xxv; Benj. x; Mishna, Sanhedrin x. i; 
Aboth. iv. 22. 

2 Is. xi. 1-4; Ps. Ixxii. 1-3; ex. 1-2, 5-6. 

3 Orac. Sib., c. iii, 663 ; 4 Esdras xiii. 33 ; Hen. xc. 16 ; Dan. 
xi; Ps. ii. 

* Philo, De Praem., par. 16, vol. ii, p. 422, ed. Mang. 



THE DAWN OF CH^STIANITY 8l 

enemies and puts kings to death." ^ Others thought 
that the Messiah would appear less as a warrior than 
as a judge. By a word of His mouth, says the 
Psalter of Solomon, He shall put down His enemies.^ 
The Book of Enoch, in its figurative discourses, rep- 
resented the Messiah, as a memorial of the vision of 
Daniel, under the guise of the Son of Man who was 
seated beside the Lord of Souls upon the throne of 
glory so that He might judge men and angels. Upon 
beholding Him, the kings and mighty ones of earth 
shall be struck with fear and trembling. They shall 
fall upon their knees and shall ask His mercy; but 
they shall be cast from His face and delivered to 
avenging angels, and receive the punishment for the 
awful torments which they have inflicted upon the 
children of God, and upon His elect." ^ 

The Messianic reign, therefore, shall begin after this 
supreme judgment. It was usually called " the reign 
of God." In fact, since the beginning, He was deemed 
the true King of Israel, the descendants of David be- 
ing only His chieftains and representatives on earth. 
With still greater reason, God was to be the Supreme 
Head of this ideal Messianic kingdom which was fore- 
seen "in the age to come." It was in God's name^ and, 
in some sort, on God's account, that the Messiah was 
to reign over a New Israel. Hence, the inaugura- 
tion of the Messianic reign was to be, in a special 
way, the founding of " the Kingdom of God." * 
The sacred name of God, be it noted, was often re- 

1 Targ. Pseud. Jonath. and Jerush., in Genesis xlix. ii; cf. 
Targ. Jonath., in Isaiah x. 27; Hen. xlvi. 426; Hi. 49; Apoc. 
Baruch. Ixxii. 6. 

2 Psalt, Solom. xvii. 27 ; xxxvii. 39 ; xli. 48 ; Apoc. Baruch. 
xl. I and 2; 4 Esdras xiii. 10, 27-28, 37-38; cf. Is. xi. 4. 

3 Hen. xlv. 3 ; Iv. 4 ; Ixix. 27 ; Ixi. 8-9 ; c. Ixii. 

* Psalt. Solom. xvii. 4; Orac. Sib., iii, 47-48, 704; Assiim. 
Mosis. X. I and 3; Shemoneh Esreh, nth Ber.; cf. Ps. ix. 8; 
xciii. I ; xcv. 3 ; xcvii. i ; xcix. i. 

6 



S2 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

placed by the name of Heaven, that is, " the King- 
dom descending from Heaven," and which has its be- 
ginning and head in the heavens. The expression, 
'' may heaven preserve me," is somewhat similar ; and 
the term " kingdom of heaven " is the same as the 
term "Malcout Shammaim" used by Rabbinic writers.^ 

Since, then, the Messianic Kingdom, by origin and 
foundation, is the Kingdom of Heaven; so, by des- 
tination and extent, it was to be the Kingdom of 
God on earth. Palestine, and Jerusalem its capital 
city, was to be its special territory or centre. There 
would be reunited therein all the children of Israel, 
the dead as well as those at present dispersed.^ But, 
forth from Jerusalem and the Holy Land, the Mes- 
sianic Empire was to spread over the earth. The 
various nations would submit to Israel and to the 
Messiah-King. Throughout the world the reign of 
God would extend.^ 

Still, it was not only under the material aspect of the 
ancient kingdom of David, merely restored and en- 
larged, that the Messianic Kingdom was represented. 
In fact, there was expected a general renewal of the 
world, which would greatly modify the territory and 
other features of the kingdom. Isaiah had foretold 
the creation of a new heavens and a new earth : after 
" the present world," there would be " the world to 
come." * In the Rabbinic worship we read of " this 

1 Mishna, Ber., ii, 2 and 5; Dalman, op. cit., p. 91. 

2 Psalt. Solom. iii. 16; xiv. 2; xi. ; xvii. 28; Philo De 
Exec, par. 8-9, vol. ii, 435; 4 Esdras xiii, 39-47 ^ Shemoneh 
Esreh, loth Ber.; cf. Is. xi. 12; cc. xlix. and Ix. ; Sophon. 
c. iii; Baruch. iv. 2>^ and Z7\ c. v. 

3 Orac. Sib. iii. 48 ; Psalt. Solom. xvii. 32-35 ; Hen. xc. 30 
and zy^ ; xlviii. 5 ; Ixiii. i ; Apoch. Baruch. Ixxii. 5 ; Targ., in 
Zach. iv. 7; cf. Is. ii. 2; xi. 10; xlii. 1-6; xlix. 6; Ii. 4 and 5; 
Iv. 5; Ivi. i; Micheas iv. 10; vii. 16; Jer. iji. 17; xii. 14; xvi. 
19; Sophon. ii. 11; iii. 9; Zach. ii. 15; viii. 20; xiv. 9; Dan. 
ii. 14; vii. 14 and 27. 

* Is, Ixv. 17; Ixvi. 22; cf. XXX. 26; Ii. 6; cf. Mt. xix. 28; 
2 Pet. iii. 13; Apoc. xxi. i. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 83 

world," and " the world to come." The Targum of 
Jonathan mentions *' the future world of the Messiah." 
The Mishna contrasts '' the Day of the Messiah " to 
" the present world." The existing order would 
end at the Messianic age, and then would occur 
a universal transformation of the world and a new 
order of things. *' In that day " states the Book of 
Enoch, " I shall have my Elect dwell amongst you, and 
I shall transform the heavens and make them a bless- 
ing and an eternal light; and I shall transform the 
earth that it may also become a blessing; and I shall 
make my chosen ones to dwell therein." ^ 

The New Jeriisalem, the capital of the ideal king- 
dom, was also to be transformed. Many, it is true, 
pictured it to themselves in a very material fashion. 
The Psalter of Solomon describes it as being restored 
to its former holiness by the expulsion of its pagan 
oppressors; while the Shemoneh Esreh pictures it as 
arisen from its ruins arid rebuilt forever.^ Others, 
however, conceived a much higher ideal. Thus, the 
Prophets had foretold that it would be incomparably 
superior to the ancient Jerusalem in wealth and glory. 
Aggeus, Zacharias, Isaiah, and Ezechiel had all given 
an enthusiastic description of it. Ezechiel had even 
beheld it in a mysterious ecstasy so that tradition 
considered it as already existing in Heaven.^ The 
Apocalypse of Baruch discerns it, before Adam's fall, 
in the earthly Paradise. From Eden, after the sin of 
the first man, it was transported to heaven where Abra- 
ham and Moses beheld it in a vision to which Esdras 

1 Note the expressions: "Ha 61am hazzeh," "Ha 61am 
habba " ; cf. the Greek : alo)v ovrog, 6 alcjv 6 ixeTikav, or 6 ep^ouevog; 
cf. Mt. xii. 32; Mk. X. 30; Lk. xviii. 30; Dalman, op. cit., p. 
145; Hen. Ixv. 5; cf. xci. 16; Targ. Jon.; 4 Kings iv. 33; 
Mishna, Ber., i, 5. 

2 Psalt. Solom. xvii. 25-33 ; Shemoneh Esreh, 14th Berakah. 

3 Aggeus, ii. 7-9; Zach. ii. 6-17; Is. liv. 11; c. Ix; Ezech., 
c. xl; c. xlviii. 



84 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

also was, later on, admitted/ The Book of Enoch, 
also, says that the New Jerusalem shall descend from 
heaven on earth to inaugurate the Messianic reign and 
thus replace the ancient kingdom which it shall far 
surpass in' grandeur and glory. 

To Jewish minds the Messianic era, in this re- 
newed world, appeared ^ as a period of peace and 
happiness. The symbolic and highly wrought descrip- 
tions found in the ancient Prophets certainly enabled 
most people to take that ideal view under which 
was represented the Golden Age of the Messiah. 
Henceforth, no more wars, nor strifes, nor discords; 
but rather peace, justice, and love throughout the 
earth.^ Even the wild beasts, now that they have 
been tamed, will be at man's service.* Everywhere 
there shall be fertility, abundance, and plenty.^ Every- 
one shall enjoy health and strength; mothers shall 
bear children without sorrow ; harvests shall be 
reaped without fatigue.^ 

Nevertheless, this Golden Age of the Messiah is 
often viewed not only in the light of material welfare, 
but also as an era of spiritual prosperity, of moral 
holiness, of fervor in God's service. The new nation 
shall be a holy people. Christ, its King, will allow no 
injustice within its domain ; evil shall no longer dwell 
therein; for it is a holy people.^ Life shall be one 

1 Apoc. Baruch. iv. 2-6 ; 4 Esdras x. 44, 59, 

2 Hen. liii. 6; xc. 28 and 29; cf. 4 Esdras vii. 26; Apoc. Bar. 
xxxii. 4. 

^ Orac. Sib., iii, 371-380; 751-760; Philo de Praem., par. 16, 
vol. ii, 422, ed. M. ; Apoc. Bar. Ixxiii. 4-5; cf. Is. ii. 4; xi. 6, 
9; Ix. 17; Ixv. 19 and 25; Ps. Ixxii. 

* Orac. Sib., iii, 620-623, 743, 750 ; Apoc. Bar. xxix. 5-8 ; cf. 
Is. xi. 6; Ixv. 25, 

5 Philo, De Praem., par. 17-18, vol. ii, 428, ed. Mang. ; Apoc. 
Bar. Ixxiii. 2-7 ; Ixxiv. i ; cf. Is. Iv. 20 ; Ps. Ixxii. 16. 

6 Psalt. Solom. xvii. 28-29; xviii. 9 and 10; cf. Is. Ix. 18-21; 
Lk. xxiii. 35. 

'' Shemon. Esreh., 17th Ber. ; cf. Lk. i. 74 and 75. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 85 

constant service in the worship of God who, more 
than before, shall be worshiped in innocence and jus- 
tice. In this religious renewal the Gentiles shall find 
a place. They, too, shall become subject to the 
Messiah. Unto His light they shall arise from their 
darkness. From every nation they shall offer their 
homage to the true God; their gifts and victims they 
shall bring to His sanctuary, united to the faith of 
Israel and happy therein.^ 

Nay more, a yet higher idea was implied in this 
conception of the Messianic Kingdom. Daniel had 
represented the life of the just such as it was to be 
after the resurrection and final judgment whereby 
their lot would be determined, as a life of glory 
wherein they would shine like stars in the sky. The 
Book of Wisdom describes how it is that they shall 
find their recompense with the Lord. He shall repay 
them magnificently for having borne the slight suffer- 
ings of the present life. Their Lord shall reign for- 
ever. Being a part of His kingdom, they shall be 
crowned with a radiant diadem: they shall rule over 
nations as conquerors.^ Under the same aspect also 
the nobler souls picture to themselves the condition of 
future life in the Messianic Kingdom. They view it 
chiefly as something apart from earth and immaterial ; 
or, rather, as a spiritual life incomparably exalted and 
affording the intimate enjoyment of God and the 
contemplation of His glory. Hence the place of this 
Messianic Kingdom was not likely to be found upon 
earth, but rather in an ideal sphere, like Eden, the 
wondrous Paradise.^ The Kingdom no longer was 

1 Hen., xlviii, 4 ; cf. Is. ii. 2-4 ; xi. 6, 10 ; li. 4-5 ; Ivi. 6-8 ; 
Ix. i-ii; Jer. iii. 17; Ps. ii. 7; xxii. 28; Ixxii. 8. 

2 Dan. xii. 2-3 ; Wisd. iii. 59 ; v. 16 ; cf. 2 Maccabees vii. z^, 

3 Apoc. Bar. Ixi. 3, 7-14; 4 Esdras vi. 1-3, 68-72; Bensly, 
The Missing Frag., pp. 55, 69; Assum. Mosis. x. 9 and 10; 
Test. 12 Patr. Dan. v.: The Eden; Test. Levi: The Paradise, 
from the Persian: pardes, garden; cf. Lk. xxiii. 43; 2 Cor. 
xii. 4; Apoc, ii, 7. 



86 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

viewed in its origin and starting-point, but also in 
its destination and final abode, as the Kingdom of 
Heaven. Indeed, its joy was thought to be unfailing 
and eternal. The Prophets had promised Israel that 
God would make it dwell in the Land always ; that the 
throne of David would endure forever. Daniel had 
called the Kingdom granted to the saints of the Most 
High an eternal Kingdom and had shown the risen 
saints as shining like brilliant stars until the end of 
ages. Hence the popular idea that the Messianic King- 
dom would never end. In this sense, then, did the 
Jews answer Jesus : " We have heard out of the Law 
that Christ abideth forever." ^ 

Thus did the Jews, as far as we can see, regard 
the Messianic Kingdom. It should be noted, however, 
that they did not all attempt to assign the origin of 
the expected Kingdom only at the general resurrec- 
tion and last judgment. Many saw it already real- 
ized, even in its totality, before that event. They be- 
lieved that its earthly duration was to be limited, that 
it was to be absorbed after the final judgment in a 
yet grander era of heavenly happiness. Thus, the 
royal reign of the Messiah is said to last " to the end 
of this corruptible world " ; and again " until the end 
Cometh, the day of judgment." Christ's reign was 
supposed to last for the space of 400 years, as we 
find in one text of the Talmud; while, elsewhere in 
the same work, it is supposed to last for 1000 years. 
This interval of four hundred years, by the way, seems 
to answer to the duration of the Jewish servitude in 
Egypt. Hence while most people regarded the 
Messiah as immortal, others, who believed that 
His reign would be of a limited duration, said that He 



1 Jer. xxiv. 6; Ez. xxxvii. 25; Ps. xlv. 7; Ixxxix. 30; Dan. 
vii. 27 : malcout olam ; Dan. xii. 2 and 3 ; Orac. Sib., iii, 49-50, 
766; Psalt. Solom. xvii. 4; Hen. Ixii. 14; Jo. xii. 34; cf. Targ. 
Jonath., in Is. ix. 6: Man abiding forever: the Messiah. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 87 

would die like other men at the close of the Messianic 
era and before the final resurrection/ 

The Suffering Servant.— Did they go a step 
further and even conclude that the Messiah was 
to die before His Kingdom had been established 
fully and that He would die in order to found it? 
This view is forcibly suggested by Isaiah. The lat- 
ter part of his prophecy represents the Servant of 
Jaweh as expiating, by His sufferings, the iniquities 
of His people, and as being recompensed by God for 
having offered His life as an atoning sacrifice. More- 
over, the Jewish traditions held that this Servant of 
the Eternal could be none other than the Messiah. 
Thus, the Targum of Jonathan interpreted of the 
Messiah the first verses of the passage relating to 
His triumph and glory : " Behold, my Servant cometh, 
the Messiah. He shall be exalted and extolled, and 
shall be exceeding high." Of this text, Abarbanel 
says : '* Jonathan, son of Uzziel, has applied this pas- 
sage to the Messiah who was to come, and this is 
also the opinion of our scholars of happy memory." ^ 

So strong, however, was the hope in a Messiah 
Triumphant that the exclusive view of His power and 
grandeur tended to set aside, as not applying to Him, 
every idea of suffering and humiliation. So that 
the same Targum, which so clearly beheld Christ in 
the Glorious Servant, does not discern Him in the 
Suffering Servant , it interprets the remainder of the 
text as referring to the Jewish people, not carmg for 
the want of logic implied in such a misinterpretation 
of the text itself. 

Among modern critics, there are some, like Budde 
and Marti, who interpret the whole text as referring 

1 Apoc. Baruch. xl. 3; 4 Esdras xii. 34; vii. 28 and 29; 
Targ. Sanhed., 99a ; cf. Gen. xv. 13 ; Ps. xc. 15 ; Targ. San- 
hed., 97a; cf. Apoc. xx. 4-6; Jo. xii. 34; 4 Esdr. vii, 28 and 29. 

2 Ps. xxii ; Dan, x^vi ; Is, Hi, 13 and 15. 



88 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

to the Jewish People, the nation being personified in 
the Suffering Servant. Cheyne thinks that this per- 
sonage represents a chosen portion of the people, the 
upper classes of Israel. Bertholet perceives in him 
a type, the type of the doctor of the law. But a 
larger number of critics insist upon the individual and 
personal character of this Servant. Sellin, for in- 
stance, identifies Him with Zorobabbel, and then with 
Joakim. Kittel believes Him to be a real, historical 
personage, perhaps Zorobabbel or the like. Duhm 
suppose him to be an unknown doctor of the law, a 
martyr of zeal for the pastoral education of His peo- 
ple. So that, the traditional Messianic interpretation 
favors the individual character of the Suffering Ser- 
vant of the Lord.^ 

Hence we see how, under the influence of the 
learned Jews, the crowd that surrounded Christ, and 
especially the Apostles disliked to be told of the 
Messiah's sufferings and approaching death. When 
Jesus had spoken to the people about His crucifixion, 
they replied that they had been taught He would abide 
forever; and when He had thus spoken to His 
Apostles, they also were surprised and indignant at 
the idea.^ 

But we must not imagine that this ofiicial teaching 
of the Synagogue was forced upon everyone. Many 
persons who, like the Eunuch of the Queen of Can- 
dace, had been aroused by the strangely vivid grandeur 
of the 53rd chapter of Isaiah must have thought of the 
Messianic sense of this text and felt inclined to ac- 

1 Budde, Die Sogen. Ebed. Jeweh-Lieder, 1900 ; Marti, Der 
Buck Jesaia, 1900; Cheyne, Jewish Ret. Life, American Lec- 
tures, 1898; art.: Servant of the Lord, E. B., cal. 4409; David- 
son, Old Testament Prophecy, 1904; Bertholet, Zu Jesaja^ 53, 
1899; Sellin, Serubabbet, 1898; art.: Studien zur Entsuchung. 
der Jud. Gemeinde, 1901 ; Kittel, Zur Theol. des A. T., 1899; 
Duhm, Da6 Buch Jesaia, 1892, 2d ed., 1902, in Handkom, Z. 
A. T. (Nowack). 

2 Jo, xii. 32-34; Mk, viii. 31-33; ix. 30-31, 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 89 

cept the idea of a Suffering Messiah and Redeemer. 
The idea of a Messiah who would expiate for sin by 
His sufferings, such as the prophet apparently had 
announced, was certainly admitted by the scholarly 
Jews of the second century after Christ, and it seems 
difficult to ascribe this belief only to the influence of 
the New Revelation and to the efforts of Christian 
Apologists.^ 

Thus S. Justin says : " If we show to the Jews the 
number of Scripture texts that clearly prove that the 
jNIessiah was to suffer, they must admit that such texts 
are Messianic ; they maintain, however, that this Jesus 
is not the . Messiah." And the Jew Trypho re- 
plied : " That Christ should suffer, and that the Scrip- 
tures affirm this, is quite plain." And he added, as 
regards the text of Isaiah : " We know that he will 
suffer and shall be led as a lamb." ^ 

The Talmud, also, affords evidence of the same 
opinion. The ancient Rabbis gave many reasons to the 
Messiah, such as " the Suffering," or " the Afflicted." 
These latter terms agree with the text of Isaiah c. liii. 
4. The word " nagoua," that is, stricken, or afflicted, 
or chastized by God, is also applied to leprosy, viewed 
as a divine chastisement. The Rabbi Joses of Galilee, 
who lived in the time of Trypho, says that " the 
Messiah-King will be humbled and made an object of 
scorn for the sake of the rebels, for it is written; 
' He hath been stricken for our iniquities.' How 
much more shall He atone for all generations, ac- 
cording to the saying : ' The Lord hath placed upon 
Him the iniquity of us all.' " Similarly, in the 
treatise, Sanhedrin, of the Talmud, the Messiah is 
represented sitting at one of the gates of Rome, and 
binding and unbinding his wounds.^ 

1 Acts viii. 28-35. 

2 S. Justin, Dial., c. Ixviii ; cc. Ixxxix and xv. 

^ Tr. San., 98b : houlia, i. e., " sick " ; also interpreted, hiv- 
vara, i. e., " leprous " Is. liii. 4; cf. the noun, nega, z, e., stroke, 
phastisement, leper, leprous. Cf. Tr. San. 98a, 



90 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



Pre-existence. — The Messiah, therefore, in the 
popular expectancy, was a Man-Messiah, born among 
men and sharing all human conditions, even though He 
was divinely endowed with special gifts and powers. 
But was there not a far nobler idea beyond this? 
Did not most people, without losing hold on their 
conviction of His human nature, get a glimpse of a 
supernatural element in His being, of a transcendent 
personality that tended to enhance human nature in 
Him, to draw it closer to the divinity, perhaps to 
identify Him with the divinity? This question can- 
not be answered precisely and with full certainty. 
Why? Because the writings that might give us the 
elements, at least, of a solution are of a somewhat 
uncertain date. Besides, we cannot determine exactly 
whether they depend, or not, upon the influence of 
Christian revelation. But, probably, as we learn from 
many reliable documents, at the dawn of the Christian 
era, people were inclined to ascribe to Christ a pre- 
existence in heaven before His earthly appearance on 
earth, as also to give to Him the tribute of an almost 
supernal and superhuman personality. 

The Prophet Micheas, in announcing that the ruler 
of Israel should arise from Bethlehem, had also de- 
scribed His origin as from the beginning, from the 
days of eternity. Tradition, perceiving in this text 
the prediction of the birth of the Messiah-King, 
the Son of David, was naturally led to determine the 
question of His eternal origin, which it endeavored to 
harmonize with His birth in the course of time. The 
Targum of Jonathan is content to give this less pre- 
cise commentary : " From Thee, O Bethlehem, shall 
come forth unto me the Messiah, the ruler of Israel, 
whose name had been uttered from the beginning, 
from the days of eternity." ^ 

The like terms are found in the symbolic discourses 

1 Mich, V. 12 ; Targ. Jonathan, in Zach, iy. J, 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 91 

of the Book of Enoch ; but they are clearly explained by 
the author as referring to a real pre-existence of the 
Messiah with God before His earthly appearance, and 
before the creation of all things. His name had been 
uttered in presence of the Lord of Spirits, before the 
sun and the planets were created, before the stars 
existed. Prior to His earthly advent, He was hidden 
and guarded within the being of God : the world was 
not as yet, when He was already the Elect of God, 
chosen and reserved by Him ; and He shall be w^ith 
Him for all eternity.^ 

"A personal existence of the Messiah, celestial 
though not premundane, is taught in Enoch," says 
Dalman. " The statements as to pre-existence in the 
Similitudes of Enoch and of IV Esdras, moreover, do 
not presuppose any human birth of the Messiah. He 
is to make His appearance upon earth as a fully de- 
veloped personality." He thinks that Enoch xliii. 6, 
which mentions a premundane existence is an inter- 
polation.^ 

Charles and Flemming, however, do not at all sug- 
gest such interpolation.^ While Schiirer says : *' The 
Messiah, the perfect King of Israel, chosen by God 
from eternity, is in Heaven, already in communion 
with God.' * And Holtzmann remarks : "We find there 
the same wavering between the real and the ideal pre- 
existence that generally characterizes the whole 
opinion of later Judaism about His pre-existence." ® 
Baldensperger, too, asserts that after the apparition of 
the parables of Enoch, " the heavenly pre-existence of 

1 Hen. xlviii. 3 ; xlvi. i and 2 ; Hi. 7 ; xlviii. 6. 

2 Dalman, op. cit., p. 131. 

3 Charles, The Book of Enoch, 1893, p. 134; Flemming, 
Das Buck Henoch, p. 70. 

* Schiirer, op. cit., vol. xxi, p. 503. 

5 Holtzmann, H., Lehrb. d. N. T. TheoL, vol. i, p. 75. 



92 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the Messiah was received as "a dogma in the apocalyp- 
tic circles." ^ 

The IV Book of Esdras puts the matter in no less 
formal terms : " We behold the Messiah whom the 
Most High reserves until the end. ... It is He whom 
the Most High guards for a long time. . . . None 
can fathom nor know what lies in the depths of the 
sea; so none on earth can see the Son of God nor 
those who are with him until the Judgment day." ^ 

Probably, the influence of Christian ideas is trace- 
able in the Book of Enoch and in the IV Book of 
Esdras, although they are of Jewish origin. Still we 
may safely admit that the Jewish pre-Christian tradi- 
tion borrowed this point of doctrine from the data 
furnished by the Old Law itself. 

The teaching of Tradition, - as we have seen, 
depends upon the certainly remarkable text of the 
Prophet Micheas. But we may ask if it may not 
also have some foundation in the famous text of the 
Prophet Daniel concerning the Son of Man? This 
seemingly human personage, who is " like unto a son 
of man," or " to a man," who receives from the 
Ancient of Days, that is, the Eternal God, power and 
dominion over the earth for a universal and endless 
reign, is seen to be, if we interpret the text strictly, 
the personification of all Israel, of that race of " saints 
of the Most High," while the pagan kingdoms, hostile 
to the true God, are represented under the form of 
four beasts. The Angel, however, reminds us that 
the Four Beasts represent not only the pagan nations 
but also the Kings of the four pagan empires. This 
analogy led people to think that the Son of Man rep- 
resents the King of the new empire, the founder and 
sovereign of the Messianic kingdom, the Messiah ; 
while all the saints of the Most High share in His 

1 Baldensperger, Das Selbstbewust. Jesu., 26. ed., p. 85, 1892. 

2 4 Esdras xii. $2 ; xiii. 24 and 25. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 93 

glory and rejoice, under His sway, in the new royalty 
that is without limit and without end. 

It should be noted, by the way, that the term '* Son 
of Man," in the Semitic languages, and especially 
in the Old Testament phraseology, is synonymous with 
the word " Man." In the poetic passages, and as a 
result of the parallehsm, it seems to correspond to 
the word " Man " and to be its equivalent. Apart 
from this view-point of parallelism, it is also em- 
ployed as the synonym for " Man '' about eighty 
times in the Prophecy of Ezechiel.^ 

In fact, the Book of Enoch, throughout its alle- 
gorical discourses, calls the Messiah the " Son of 
Man." This title, be it noted, was not usually ap- 
plied to the Messiah : it implied such humiliation that 
it was allowed to fall into disuse. Hence we can ac- 
count for the surprise caused by the Saviour's use of 
this title. Yet, we may admit that, for some time be- 
fore the Christian era, it had been given to the 
Messiah, and especially so by the author of the Book 
of Enoch. The prominence of the Book of Daniel at 
the beginning of the Christian Era and the tradition- 
ally Messianic character of its seventh chapter, must 
have naturally connected the title " Son of Man " with 
the Messiah-King. The same text of Daniel repre- 
sents the Son of Man as coming in the clouds of 
heaven, escorted by angels before the throne of God, — 
to be invested with His supreme royalty. Naturally 
enough. He who seemed to thus descend upon the 
clouds of heaven, must have pre-existed before 
His earthly advent. It would, therefore, seem that 
the Christian ideas had not influenced Jewish Tradi- 
tion concerning the pre-existence of the Messiah m 
heaven, unless it were perhaps to give a decisive scope 

1 Dan. vii. 13 and 14; Num. xxiii. 19; Job xvi. 22; xxv. 6; 
Ps. viii. 5; cxliii. 3: Is. li. 12; Ivi. 2; Ecclus. xvii. 29; Dan. 
viii. 17; vii. 17: the Hebrew text has melakin, i. e., the kings; 
the Vulgate reads : regna, i. e., kingdoms. 



94 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

and a full relief to the ideas already imbibed by many 
persons from the Old Testament writings, and es- 
pecially from the Prophecies of Micheas and Daniel. 
We may also perceive a formal allusion to this idea 
of Christ's pre-existence in the Jews' remark about 
the Saviour: "When Christ shall come, none shall 
know whence He is." ^ 

Loisy says that according to a tradition, " the 
Messiah was to appear unexpectedly, none being 
aware whence He came. This has been the actually 
current tradition, it agrees fully with the idea of 
the Messiah pre-existing in heaven and awaiting the 
moment of His earthly manifestation such as we 
behold Him perhaps in Daniel, and certainly in the 
Book of Enoch as also in the IV Book of Esdras." ^ 

Some critics believe that the traditional interpreta- 
tion agrees with the sense of the text of the Prophet 
Daniel. Thus, Boehmer says that the Son of Man: 
mentioned by Daniel is the Messiah who is pre- 
existing in heaven and awaiting the time of His 
earthly manifestation.^ Volz, also, sees the Messiah 
in the personage called the " Son of A'lan." * Bousset 
remarks the mysterious character of this title and 
shows that, in Jewish circles, it had assumed a great: 
significance.^ Baldensperger, also, perceives therein 
the germ, afterwards developed by Judaism, of the 
heavenly, pre-existent Messiah.^ While Lagrange 
remarks that the term, found in an unusual con- 
text, is suggestive and that the individual inter- 
pretation is the most probable, namely, that the 

iHen. xlvi. 2, 3, 4; xlyiii. 2; xlii. 5, 7, 9, 14; Ixiii. 11; Ixix. 
27 and 29; Ixx. i; Jo. vii. 27) Dalman, op. cit., p. 240. 

2 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 510, 1903. 

3 Boehmer, Reich Gottes und Mensch., 1899. 
* Volz, Jiid. Eschatologie, 1903. 

5 Bousset, Die Rel. des Juden., 1903. 

® Baldensperger, Die Mess. Apok. Hoffnungen., 1903. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 95 

Messiah, as one distinct from the people, is inckided 
in the spiritual empire of which He is the King.^ 
Admitting that he was pre-existing in Heaven with 
God, in what relation, exactly, did the Messiah stand 
with reference to God? Was he a mere creature, al- 
though more excellent than the others, or was he par- 
ticipating in some way in the very Being of God? 

The Jewish Tradition, remarkably enough, seems 
to have given to the ^lessiah, before Christ's earthly 
appearance, the title " Son of God." It is to be found 
in the Book of Enoch, and in the IV Book of Esdras, 
as also in the Sibylline Oracles of the Jewish Sibyl.^ 

As the Gospel text seems to show, by the Jews 
of Christ's time, and apart from His statements, the 
^lessiah was already regarded as the Son of God.^ In 
fact, numerous texts of the Old Law present this 
title and these are referred, by Tradition, to the ex- 
pected Messiah-King. Did not the people refer to 
Christ the Psalmist's words in the second psalm? 

To fully understand the exact bearing of the Mes- 
sianic title and the meaning which it must have had to 
a Jew of Christ's time, we should interpret it in the 
light of the genius of the Jewish language and the 
literary usage of the Old Testament. In the Semitic 
languages, and especially in that of the Old Testa- 
ment, the word " son " has not the precise and re- 
stricted meaning which it bears in our Western 
tongues. Beyond its proper sense, it also has figura- 
tive and wider meanings. The term " sonship " is 
used to indicate every close relation, physical or 

1 Lagrange, art. : Les Propheties Mess, de Daniel, Rev. Bib., 
1904, p. 505. 

2 Hen. cv. 2 ; 4 Esdr. vii. 28 and 29 ; xiii. s^, 37, 52 ; xiv. 9 ; 
Orac. Sib., iii, 775; the text reads: vl6v GfoZo; but has been 
corrected by Alexandre thus : ^7701; Qeo'io. 

3 Jo. i. 48; vi. 70; xi. 27; Mt. xvi. 16; Mk. xiv. 61 ; Mt. xxvii. 
46; Ac. ix. 20 and 22; Ps. ii. 2, 7, 8, 12; cf. Targ., in Ps. ii; 
Ac. iv. 25-27; cf. Ps. Ixxxix. 27-30; 2 Sam. vii. 14. 



96 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

moral, every intimate connection of origin, dependence, 
and affection analogous to the relationship between 
father and son. Thus, physically speaking, the 
arrow is called " son of the bow," or " son of the 
quiver " ; the spark, " daughter of flame " ; the grain of 
corn, " son of the floor " ; an anointed person, " son 
of oil " ; a person worthy of death, or threatened 
therewith, '' son of death." ^ Morally viewed, the 
disciples of the Prophets are called " sons of the 
Prophets " ; while evil persons, or those under dia- 
bolical influence are called '' sons of Belial." ^ 

In the New Testament, we find the like Hebraisms. 
The descendants of sinful Adam are called '' sons of 
wrath ; the false prophets, '' sons of malediction " ; 
Judas, the *' son of perdition," as is also Antichrist; 
the damned, '' sons of gehenna." Christ calls the 
Jews '' sons of the devil," as does also S. Paul call 
the magician Elymas, and S. John when distinguish- 
ing sinners from the children of God. On the other 
hand, Christ calls the Apostles " my sons " ; as also 
SS. Paul and John their respective disciples.^ 

In the Old Testament, where the expression " son 
of God " often occurs, the word " son " has a varied 
and general sense. It designates whatever has a 
special relationship with God, close and intimate, 
whether of origin, dependence, or moral and affective 
union. The Angels, in particular, are called " sons 
of God," because they are especially near to God and 
by their nature closely related to Him. Saintly people 
who serve God as a father and whom God regards 

ijob xli. 19; Lamen. iii. 13; Job v. 7; Is. xxi. 10; Zach. iv. 
14; I Sam. x:c. 31; 2 Sam. xii. 5; Ps. Ixxix. 11; cii. 21. 

2 I Kings XX. 35 ; 2 Kings ii. 3, 5, 7 ; iv. 38 ; cf. Exod. ii. 10 ; 
Prov. i. 10; Deut. xiii. 13; Judith xix. 22; i Sam. ii. 12. 

3 Eph. ii. 3; 2 Pet. ii. 14; Jo. xvii. 12; 2 Thess. ii. 3; Mt. 
xxiii. 15; Jo. viii. 44; Ac. xiii. 10; i Ep. Jo. iii. 10; Mk. x. 24; 
Jo. xiii. ZZ\ Gal. iv. 9; i Ep. Jo. ii. i; xii. 18, 28; iii. 7, 18; 
iv. 4; V. 21. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



97 



as His sons are also styled " sons of God." The 
giants, apparently are also called the '' sons of God." 
Such terms, moreover, as " mountain of God," " cedars 
of God," '' garden of God " are worthy of note by 
way of comparison.^ Thus it is that the Israelites, the 
especially chosen and cherished people of Jehovah are 
called the " sons of God," and that Israel receives, in 
the singular number, the title " son," and '' first-born 
Son of God." ^ 

This title, finally, is naturally transferred from the 
people as such and given, in a special way, to their 
chief. All kings, princes, and judges of the land are 
called " sons of God," as holding their authority from 
God and sharing somewhat in His power and func- 
tions. Just as the Chinese call their Emperor " tian- 
tseu," or '' son of heaven " ; a title also given to the 
kings of Assyria and Egypt. But the king of Israel, 
the theocratic sovereign, the official vicar of Jehovah, 
merits this title in a special manner because of His 
relationship with God. Of all kings soever, he is 
God's " First-born Son," the object of His predilection 
and of His special favors.^ 

If, then, the Old Testament literature displays such 
a large usage of the title " son of God," we can see 
how this appellation could be given to the Messiah 
and what meaning it had in Jewish minds during the 
first century of Christianity. 

The Messiah was the " Son of God " because He 
was destined to be in a special sense, the King of 
Israel, the Elect, the representative and lieutenant of 
God. He is entitled " the Elect " in the Book of 

1 Job i. 6; ii. i; xxxviii. 7; Ps. Ixxxix. 7; Ecclus. iv. 11; 
Wisd. ii. 13; cf. Ps. Ixxiii. 15; Prov. xiv. 26; Gen. vi. 2, 4. 

2 Deut. xiv. I, 2; Is. xliii. 6; Wisd. ix. 7, 12, 19, 21; xviii. 4; 
cf. Is. i. 2; XXX. I, 9; Jerem. iii. 14, 19; Osee ii. i; Exod. iv. 
22, 23; Ps. Ixxx. 16, 18; Osee xi. i; Jerem. xxxi. 20. 

3 Ps. Ixxxii. 6 ; cf. Ps. Ixxxix. 28 ; Dahnan, op. cit., p. 275 ; 
2 Sam. vii. 14; Ps. ii. 7, 11; Ixxxix. 27, 28. 

7 



98 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Enoch. In Him was to be consummated the glory 
of the ancient kings of Israel. He it was who should 
rule the ideal kingdom of the Messianic future, the 
eternal kingdom of God.^ The title, " Son of God," 
therefore, answers particularly to the Jewish idea of 
the Elect of God, as also to the idea of His close and 
personal relations with God. He was the " Son of 
God " because He was eminently the Man of God, 
sharing in a special manner the Spirit of God, and 
uniquely endowed with His holiness, grandeur, and 
power. The Book of Enoch thus describes Him: 
" His look is like that of a man ; but He is full of 
grace as one of the holy angels. It is He who pos- 
sesses right, with whom justice dwells, and who re- 
veals all hidden treasures ; because the Lord of Spirits 
has chosen Him, and because of His righteousness He 
ever rules all that exists in sight of the Lord of 
Spirits. . . . His glory is from eternity to eternity: 
His power from generation to generation. In Him 
dwells the Spirit of Wisdom ; the spirit of Him who 
giveth knowledge ; the spirit of teaching and of power ; 
the spirit of those who die in justice ; He shall judge 
secret things, and none shall hold vain discourse be- 
fore Him for He has been chosen by the Lord of 
Spirits at His good-pleasure." ^ 

" The author of the Symbolic Discourses," says 
Holtzmann, '' has imparted to the figure of the Messiah 
a transcendent character which exceeds the narrow- 
ness of earthly conditions ; so that He keeps in touch 
with all the peculiar features of New Testament 
Judaism, with its thought and feeling which surpasses 
the reality." ^ 

The Messiah, however, was surely something more 

1 Hen. xliv. 3, 4; xlix. 2; li. 3, 5,; Hi. 6, 9; liii. 6; Iv. 4; Ixi. 
8; Ixii. i; Lk. xxiii. 35 ; Hen. xlvi. i, 2. 

2 Hen. xlix. 2, 4; Schiirer, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 503. 

3 Holtzmann, H., Lehrb. N. T. TheoL, vol. i, p. 75. 



"THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 99 

than a creature very near to God and especially privi- 
leged among created beings. The title " Son of God," 
although itself implying a simple divine sonship of 
a metaphoric and figurative kind, in some way, when 
applied to the Messiah, begat the idea of a sonship 
even more intimate and more real. The text of the 
Prophet Micheas, for instance, seems suggestive; for 
it describes the Messiah's origin which is said " to go 
back to ancient times, to the days of eternity.'* But 
was He a mere creature only. He who could thus lay 
claim to an eternal origin? Isaiah, also, was known 
to have given unusual names to the Messiah. Not 
only is He called "Admirable, Counsellor, Prince of 
Peace," but also ■" Mighty God," " Eternal Father," 
and even '"' Emmanuel," that is, God with us.^ 

Was there not, finally, a tendency to estabhsh a 
relation between the Messiah, God's Envoy, and this 
species of divine hypostasis, of reflection of the 
Divinity, known as the "Angel of Jaweh," the " Wis- 
dom,'' or, the "Word of God? The "Angel of 
Jaweh " frequently mentioned in the Books of Genesis 
and Exodus, was believed to be a person both distinct 
from God, whose messenger and ambassador he was, 
as the word mal'ak implies, and at the same time 
identical with God whom He represents equivalently 
and whose name he assumes.^ 

The Sapiential Books seem to have given to "Wisdom 
the same character of a divine, quasi-hypostasis. Wis- 
dom appears as a mysterious intermediary of God in 
the work of creating the world and of dealing with 
men. Wisdom is the artisan who performs the 
creative work. It has been imparted to men by 

1 Is. ix. 5; vii. 14; viii. 8, 10. 

2 Gen. xxiv. 4; Num. xx. 16; Ex. xxiii. 20; xxxlii. 2, 3; 
Is. Ixiii. 9; Gen. xxii. 12; xxxi. 11, 12; xxxii. 28; xlviii. 15, 
16; Judith vi. 11-23; Ex. xiii. 21; xiv. 19, 2^', Davidson, art.: 
Angel, H. D., p. 94; Reynolds, art.: John, Gospel of, H. D., 
p. 704; Piepenbring, Theol. de I'Anc. Test., 1886, p. 128. 



lOO CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL ■ 

means of human science, and, above all, to Israel by 
the revelation of the Law. Wisdom existed in God 
before the origin of the world, sitting beside Him on 
His throne like a divine ambassador. It is a most 
pure emanation, an image most perfect, a kind of 
radiation of the divinity.^ 

A striking analogy to the Logos, or Divine Reason, 
mentioned in Greek philosophy is observable in this 
" Wisdom of God," or '' Hokmah " described by the 
sacred writers. In the Book of Wisdom the Greek 
term " logos " is taken as equivalent of " sophia," or, 
wisdom, and expresses also a divine hypostasis. 
" Wisdom is represented not only as a special attri- 
bute of God," says Schiirer, '' but also as a feminine 
companion whose origin is from God's very being. 
Side by side with her, " the all-powerful word 
of God " is also personified in a way closely 
approaching the divine hypostasis. So that, even 
here, we find the elements whence Philo could 
develop his teaching on the Logos viewed as a hypo- 
stasis which acted as a mediator between God and the 
world." ^ The term " logos " also means reason, or 
intelligence, or the mental word of which it is the 
expression. In fact. Holy Scripture has often taken 
the Divine Word and the Divine Wisdom to be iden- 
tical, personifying each in the same way and ascribing 
to each the same role of mediator between God and 
creatures. Thus creation is viewed as the work of 
the Word or Divine Wisdom ; while in Ecclesiaticus, 

1 Job xxviii. 20-28 ; Prov. viii. 22 ; Bar. iii. 29-38 ; Ecclus. 
xxiv. 5-14; Wisd. vii. 25; ix. 4; Drummond, Philo Judaeus, 
1888, vol. i, pp. 141, 217; Heinze, Die Lehre von Logos. i'^72, 
p. 200; Aall, Geschichte der Logosidee, 1896, vol. i, p. 178. 

^ Heraclitus of Ephesus, b. 525 B, C. ; Anaxagoras of Cla- 
somene, b. 5oo B. C. ; Plato, ^ fl. 427-347 B. C. ; Zeno of Citium, 
fl. 343-270 B. C. ; Wisd. xviii. 15; Schiirer, op. cit., vol, iii, p. 
379. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY loi 

Wisdom is identified with the Word of God.^ The 
mysterious, divine hypostasis, then, described in Scrip- 
ture under the two-fold form of Wisdom and the 
Word of God, is aptly expressed by the term '' logos," 
which had also the further advantage of being held m 
high honor by the Greek philosophers and even served 
to mark the agreement, so eagerly desired by Jewish 
scholars like Philo, between Revelation and the 
vaunted Greek philosophy. 

Hence the unusual favor which the term " logos " 
enjoyed apparently in the Jewish schools, if not be- 
fore, at least at the beginning of the Christian era. 
The Targumists, inheritors of ancient Tradition, used 
it on each page of their popular paraphrases of the 
Hebrew text under the Aramaic form " Memra," or, 
the Word, and even employed it for the Sacred Name 
of God (Elohim or Jaweh) whenever there was ques- 
tion of His relations with creatures. God, the creator 
and Lord of all things ; God, the protector of the 
patriarchs and leader of Israel is not Jaweh precisely, 
but the " Word " of Jaweh. It is '' Memra " who 
guides the people through the desert; who speaks to 
them from Mount Sinai ; who gives them mastery 
over Canaan ; who inspires the Prophets and dictates 
their oracles.^ 

Thus the three terms, Angel of God, Wisdom of 
God, and Word of God designate one and the same 
mysterious being, a kind of divine hypostasis, or God 
Himself as viewed in relation to His creatures. The 
author of the Book of Wisdom had already shown 
the equivalence of these three terms. He practically 
identifies Wisdom with the Word of God, and then 
attributes to the Logos, to Wisdom, and to the Word 
of God the very same role towards Israel as had been 

1 Wisd. ix. I, 2; Ps. xxiii. 6; Heb. xi. 3; cf. Ps. cxlviii. 4; 
Ecclus. xlii. 15 ; Gen. c. i. ; Ecclus. xxiv. 5 ; i. 5. 

2 Hackspill, Etudes, Rev. Bib., Jul., 1901 ; Jan., 1902, 



I02 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

usually given to the *'Angel of the Lord." In Exodus, 
the "Angel of Jaweh " is described as leading Israel 
onward by the pillar of cloud. The author of the 
Book of Wisdom ascribes the same role to " the Wis- 
dom of God," He also attributes to the " Logos " the 
extermination of the first-born among the Egyptians. 
In Exodus, this is assigned to Jaweh Himself, but the 
analogy with other passages permit us to attribute 
it again to the "Angel of Jaweh." Thus the latter is 
called the Angel Guardian of Israel and the Exter- 
minator of its enemies.^ 

Philo, therefore, in identifying these three terms 
with Wisdom, merely interprets the facts of Scripture. 
At the basis of all his theosophy, he places the doctrine 
of the Logos, and considers the Logos as being both 
the divine act of inteUigence as conceiving the idea 
of the world, that is the hidden Wisdom of God, and 
the outward term of this divine idea, or the creative 
Word. But He is also the Supreme Angel known in 
Scripture as " the Angel of God " par excellence.^ 

Some critics claim that the Logos as described by 
Philo has not a clearly defined hypostatic character ; 
that it is neither a mere abstraction nor a well-defined 
personality. " The conception wavers confusedly," 
says Zeller, " between a personal and an impersonal 
being. And we lose sight of this very feature when we 
take the Logos of Philo either for a person outside of 
God or simply for God Himself viewed in the special 

1 Ex. X. 17; Wisd. X. 17; Ex. xii. 29; Ps. xxxiv. 8; xxxv. 
5, 6; cf. 2 Kings xix. 35. 

2 Philo, Leg. Alleg., i. g; De Sacrf. Abel, iii; Legend. Alleg., 
iii, 60 ; De Conf. Ling., xviii ; De Cher, i-iii ; De Somn. i, 41 ; 
De Mutat. Nom., xiii ; De Vita Mosis, i, 12 (ed. Mangey, vol. 
i, pp. 47, 122, 138-140, 165, 427, 591, 656) ; vol. ii, p. 92; Heinze, 
op. cit., pp. 230, 280-295 ; Drummond, Philo Judaeus, vol. ii, 
pp. 201-213, 222-273; Schiirer, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 379/555 5 
Soulier, La Doct. du Logos, pp. 157-165; Reville, J., Le Logos, 
i^77> P- 76; La Doct. du Logos, 1881. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



103 



relation of His activity." ^ Now, was there not a tend- 
ency to identify the Angel of God, this Wisdom, this 
Word of God with the Messiah, the Son of God? 
The analogy of His role suggested such a conclusion. 
As the Angel of Jaweh, was not the Messiah to be 
pre-eminently God's representative among men. His 
mediator in the work of renewing the world ? Among 
the names given to Christ by the Prophets we notice 
that of "Angel of the Great Council,'' and "Angel 
of the Alliance." ^ 

Probably as a result of such resemblances, the Book 
of Enoch represents the Messiah as being " like to 
one of the Holy Angels." The teaching of the 
Messianistic Jews concerning the Angels, says Balden- 
sperger, had likely cleared the way for the ideas 
found in the writings of SS. Paul and John who both 
represent the Messiah as a celestial being.^ 

But does not the Messiah even appear as God's rep- 
resentative and a personification of His word? The 
Book of Enoch describes Him as being " clothed with 
the spirit of wisdom, of knowledge, and of instruc- 
tion " ; as " possessing righteousness, dwelling with 
justice, revealing all hidden treasures." In the des- 
cription of the symbolic vision, we also find the re- 
markable statement, which plainly alludes to the 
Messiah: "The first among them (the animals) was 
the Word." But it seems that the extant Ethiopic text 
is faulty ; the original Hebrew text probably had re' em, 
the " wild beast." Perhaps the Greek translator has 
merely transcribed the Hebrew word into Greek 
letters, i. e., pvij^ ; while the Ethiopic translator 
may have taken it for p;7//a, i. e. the " Word," and 
have written the Ethiopic equivalent, which is nagar. 
Charles and Flemming both translate it thus : "And 
the first among them was the wild-horse." * 

1 Zeller, Die Philos. de Griechen, 1881, vol. iii, p. 378. 

2 Is. ix. 5, after the Septuagint. 

3 Enoch xl i. I ; Baldensperger, op. cit. 
*Hen. xlvi. 3; xlix. 2-4; xc. 38, 



I04 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



Was not this similarity, finally, favored by the fact 
that writers like Philo ventured to give to the Logos 
the very name which they had been incHned to re- 
serve for the Messiah, that is, the " Son of God," and 
the " First-Born of God?" 

Referring to Philo, Schmidt remarks that " when 
he called this Logos ' the perfect Son,' ' the first-born 
Son of God,' he did not imply that it was an individ- 
ual, an hypostasis, a person. Yet it was inevitable that 
the term ' Son of God ' should suggest a mediator 
between God and the world, a celestial personality 
more grandly conceived than any other associated 
with the name, and herein lies much of its historic 
importance." ^ 

If such was the popular idea of the Messiah at the 
beginning of Christianity, we may say that it bore 
a twofold aspect. He was represented as a man in 
all things *' like to a son of man." Afterwards, the 
Jew Trypho says to S. Justin : '* We all expect a 
Messiah who will be born a man among men " ; and 
that " this Messiah should suffer is what the Scriptures 
plainly announce." In the Book of Enoch, the Messiah 
is called '* son of woman " ; but apparently the people 
were also inclined to regard Him as being more than 
a man ; for, owing to the higher part of His being, He 
somehow appeared as a Divine person.^ 

Philo, relying upon the Sapiential Books, called the 
Logos the " Ray of God," visible to men. His image ; 
the " splendor of His glory " ; the " instrument of 
Creation," the " source of all life," in this world. He 
presents Him as an exemplary type of man, especially 
fitted to represent mankind before God, to serve Him 

1 Philo, De Confus. Ling., i, 14, 28 ; De Agr. Noe., xii : De 
Migr. Abraham, i; Quod Deus immut., vi ; De Profug., xx; 
De Somn., i, 37] Quis Rer., xxv. 48 (ed. Mangey, vol. i, pp. 
277, 308, 414, 427, 437, 490, 505, 562, 653) ; Coloss. i. 15; Jo. i, 
I, 18; Schmidt, art.: Son of God, E. B., col. 4695. 

2 S. Justin, Dial., c. xlix. c. Ixxxix ; Hen. Ixii. 5. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 105 

as '' High Priest " and '' Intercessor." He seems to 
describe Him as a divine being, doubtless derived from 
the One God, although not as are creatures, and merit- 
ing Himself the name of " God," or the " Under- 
God." Often he calls Him '' odeiogloyoQj' that is, 
**the Divine Word," and sometimes the *'Vice- 
gferent of God," or, v-apxoq ; and also **eedf'* in a 
minor sense. ^ 

Now, was it not under that particular aspect, 
— with that mysterious and composite mixture of 
divine and human elements — that many a Jew 
pictured the Messiah to himself? S. Justin writes: 
" When we refer the Jews to the Scripture pas- 
sages which clearly show that the Messiah was to 
suffer and be honored, and that He is God, they must 
admit the Messianic sense of these passages. Still, 
they dare to pretend that this Jesus is not the Messiah, 
but that the Messiah is yet to come, to suffer, and to 
reign; and that He will be a God worthy of adora- 
tion." 2 

Such an idea of the Messiah-God was certainly far 
from being as general and precise at the dawn of the 
Christian era as it was afterwards under the influence 
of the New Revelation. But may we not prudently 
venture the opinion that it was already germinating 
in the heart of Judaism during the years preceeding 
the Saviour's birth? It is hardly credible that the 
most distinguished minds, versed in the deepest study 
of the Scripture, and so pious and divinely enlightened, 

1 Philo, De Mund. opif., viii; De Confus. Ling., xx; De 
Profug., xix. 20 ; De Somn., i, 41 ; ii, 6, 139 ; De Mon., xi, 5 ; 
De Plant., v; De Gigant., xi ; Quis Reriwi., xlii ; De Agric. 
Noe., xii; Leg. Alleg., Ixxiii ; Qu. and Sol, in Ge. vii. 13 (ed, 
Mangey, vol. i, pp. 6, 419, 561, 655, 656, 665; vol. ii, p. 225; 
vol. i, p. 28, 269, 308, 332, 501 ; vol. ii, p. 625) ; Wisd. vii. 25-26; 
Prov. c. viii; Ecclus. xxiv. 14; Ps. ex.; Ps. iv. ; Wisd. vii. 23, 
27-28. 

2 S. Justin, Dial.f c. Ixviii. 



lo6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

could not have then suspected, in the dim Hght of 
the ancient revelation, the Incarnation of Divine Wis- 
dom and beheld, in a still mysterious twilight, the 
Word of God Incarnate in the living Messiah. 

We should not forget that the extra-canonical 
documents, which we have employed, present only 
an imperfect study of the Jewish thought of 
Christ's time. What they have preserved for us 
is, before all, the tradition of the Hebrew schools 
and synagogues; the speculative ventures of the 
learned, more or less tainted with the leaven of the 
Pharisees, and the prevailing belief of the multitudes 
that came under their influence. But, in face of the 
official teaching, aside from the lower class of Pharisees 
and illiterate Galileans there were some chosen souls, 
less enslaved to material interests, more conversant 
with the Sacred Scriptures and more receptive of 
God's clear revelations. 

Writing of Schiirer's work, Lagrange says that he 
does not mention the good people who remained faith- 
ful to the Law, without Hving apart from others True, 
good people have no history ; still, they are a great fac- 
tor in history. The life of Christ would be unintelligible 
if the Mosaic Law, despite its flaws, and along with 
it the admirable prophetic and hagiographic literature, 
had not been fit to form minds that yearned after a 
fuller salvation." ^ 

" There is reason to believe," says Wendt, *'that, 
besides the Sadducean aristocrats, and the Pharisaic 
scribes, and the extensive classes of people whom 
they spiritually influenced, and besides the Essenes 
who gave up the world, there was at that time another 
circle among the Jewish people whose hearts were 
the abode of sincere and tender piety, and of obedience 
to the duties of justice and love, an elite nourished by 
a simple and upright searching of the Scriptures." ^ 

1 Lagrange, art. : Rev. Bib., Apr., 1899, P- 312. 

2 W^ndt, op. cit., 26. ed., 1901, p. 97. 



CHAPTER II. 
I. The Childhood of Christ. 

Historicity of Narratives. — The Messianic hope 
had thus far leavened the Jewish mind when suddenly 
there was proclaimed the glad-tidings that, at last, 
God had fulfilled His promises of olden time: In 
Bethlehem was born the Messiah, Son of David, Re- 
deemicr of Israel. It is the two first chapters of the 
gospels of SS. Matthew and Luke which, in narra- 
ting the birth of the Son of Mary, disclose to us the 
dawn-light of the Messianic manifestation illumin- 
ating His crib. But, some may say: Are these ac- 
counts reliable? 

Rationalistic critics usually assign to the " Gospel 
of the Infancy " a place lower than that occupied by 
the " Gospel of the Public Life," and this from the 
view-point of historical value. Like Renan, many 
who admit the Synoptic gospels as a reliable basis for 
the life of Jesus, endeavor to discredit the gospel 
record of His Infancy because they think that it is 
only a compilation of charming fables and the product 
of pious fancy. 

In Loisy's opinion, these narratives are only a 
statement of the Messianic faith which subsequently 
prevailed throughout the Christian church after a 
period of gradual idealization. " These narratives," 
he says, " represent a normal development of 
christology. The very nature of their subject, the 
critical examination of the two versions taken separ- 
ately or compared, and an analysis of evangelical tra- 
dition, permit us not to regard them as a definite 
(107) 



Io8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

expression of historical memories ; none the less they 
are put forward as a document of Christian faith, 
and in this capacity attract the attention of the his- 
torian. . . The narratives of the childhood of Christ 
are for the historian only an expression and an as- 
sertion of faith in the Messiah, that faith which is 
affirmed at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, and 
transfigured the memories of the Apostles, which is 
also affirmed and developed in Paul, and then in the 
Fourth Gospel. This faith is, as it were, the reply 
which the generations of believers make, each in turn, 
to the proposition of the gospel of Jesus ; it increases, 
yet remains the same, like an echo which, reverberating 
from mountain to mountain, becomes more sonorous 
the further it travels from its point of origin." ^ 

" The charm of these Nativity stories," says O. 
Holtzmann, " does not depend upon their historical 
truth, but upon their inner meaning; they express the 
joy of the divine world at the coming redemption of 
mankind ; the longing for a Redeemer, the homage paid 
by the great ones of the earth to a man of poverty who 
makes them all truly rich ; and God's protection 
vouchsafed to the Holy One whom the world seeks to 
destroy. Since all these ideas are true, and remain 
true, we need not pronounce the Nativity stories un- 
true, even though they are at the same time histori- 
cally incorrect." ^ 

And it is Harnack's impression that " two of the 
Gospels do, it is true, contain an introductory history 
(the history of Jesus' birth) ; but we may disregard 
it; for, even if it contained something more trust- 
worthy than it does actually contain, it would be as 
good as useless for our purpose." ^ 

Without entering into a full discussion of the Ra- 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 48, 49, 50, 

2 Holtzmann, O., Life of Jesus, p. 89. n. i, 



THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 



109 



tionalist position at present, it may be shown that, 
apart from the main objection, based upon an a priori 
method of argument, which in turn denies all objective 
supernatural reality and all historic basis in miraculous 
accounts, no Rationalist writer can, critically speaking, 
find any real difficulty as regards the truth of the 
narratives of Christ's childhood; while, an impartial 
critic will discover in these records positive and in- 
contestable proofs in favor of their entire historical 
value. 

The third gospel, for instance, which records the 
events of Jesus' infancy, was written by one and the 
same author, about 50-100 A. D., as the most indepen- 
dent critics frankly admit. Let us grant that it was 
written after the fall in Jerusalem in 70: it cannot, 
says Renan, have been composed much later. So that 
it is a document belonging to the second, if not to the 
first generation after the Saviour's death ; and, hence, 
in this respect it enjoys a special value. ^ 

The authority of S. Luke's Gospel, moreover, is 
enhanced by the fact that it represents not only the 
Christian tradition from the time that it was put in 
writing, but really reproduces the ancient and primi- 
tive tradition as found among those living between 
the time of the Saviour and that of S. Luke. The 
author, in fact, in a kind of preface wherewith he 
opens his work and wherein he dedicates it to a dis- 
ciple named Theophilus, says that many have tried to 
narrate the Gospel events on the testimony of the 
Apostles, " according as they have delivered them to 
us who, from the beginning, were eye-witnesses and 
ministers of the Word." And he adds : " It seemed 
good to me also, having diligently attained to all things 
from the beginning, to write to thee, in order, most ex- 
cellent Theophilus, that thou mayest know the verity 
of those words in which thou hast been instructed." ^ 

1 Renan, The Gospels, p. 152; cf. Lepin, Introd., p. xxxi, 
E. Tr., p. 20. 

2 Lk. i. 1-4. 



110 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

The author's aim, then, is to complete and confirm 
what the current catechetical teaching had already 
taught his disciple about the beginnings of Christian- 
ity. To attain this result he has been careful to get 
exact information concerning everything. The work 
which he presents to his dear Theophilus is only 
the writing down of well-supported and carefully 
verified testimonies. The sincerity of S. Luke's 
statement, such as it is, cannot be suspected, and 
is certainly strengthened by an examination of 
the intrinsic features of the work. Critics are 
unanimously agreed that the Third Gospel actu- 
ally bears traces of manifold documents, fragments, 
written memoirs, or oral teachings which helped 
towards its composition. This very feature is also 
noticeable in the Acts of the Apostles which all 
critics accept as the work of the same author.'^ 

Now, among the documents which were employed 
in the composition of this Gospel we may note es- 
pecially the account of the Genealogies of Jesus. The 
thoroughly Hebraic character observable in the style, 
in the phrasing, in the terms themselves even under 
their Greek garb, and in the poesy of the Canticles so 
strikingly contrasts with the Greek character of the 
Prologue that S. Luke, in the first two chapters of 
his Gospel, undoubtedly reproduces or at least largely 
employs certain accounts which, written in Hebrew or 
the Aramaic language, came to him through oral or 
written tradition. 

Thus, we may observe the constant use of the con- 
junction "and," (Heb. 'Vav") to unite sentences; 
the frequent employment of the quite Hebrew figure 
of speech, "and it came to pass" (Heb. "vayeyi") ; the 
use of the term " word " to signify '' thing," thus 
answering to the two-fold sense of the Hebrew 
" dabar," the Greek being ** pv,^^ci^'' and the Latin 

1 Rose, Studies on the Gospels, p. 73 ; cf. Lepin, Introd. 



THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST m 

" verbum " ; and finally the correspondence or paral- 
lelism of the two members forming each verse of the 
Canticles in accordance with the rule of Hebrew 
poetry.^ 

Resch claims that SS. Matthew and Luke each de- 
pend for their accounts of the infancy upon the same 
original written in Hebrew. Dalman does not ac- 
cept this view but admits a primitive Aramaic basis in 
the Gospels. While Jiilicher says that the Semitic 
character of S. Luke's Gospel is mostly due to the 
presence of Aramaic documents which the Evangelist 
reproduced very carefully; that, most likely, these 
abundant traces of the Aramaic idiom come either 
from the documents used by the writer, or from the 
influence brought to bear upon his style, in the very 
instances where he wrote independently, by the docu- 
ments which he had been habitually consulting.^ 

What, then, we may ask, is the value of the docu- 
ments thus utilized? First of all, there is S. Luke's 
statement that he had been careful to get exact in- 
formation about all matters " from the beginning." 
Does this not prove that his data concerning the early 
history of Jesus were drawn from reliable sources? 
And, indeed, this must have been an easy task for 
him. Possibly the chapter in his Gospel referring 
to the Hidden Life of Christ may not have formed 
part of the primitive catechetical instructions during 
Apostolic times such as it can be reconstructed by 
aid of the Acts and the Epistles, and such as 
is found preserved in its more simple form in 
S. Mark's Gospel. For, naturally enough, the at- 
tention of the early Christians was, from the very 
beginning, fixed chiefly upon Jesus' redemptive 

iLk. i. 13, 31-33; ii. 7-10, 25-28, 48-52; i. 5, 23, 41; ii. i, 6, 
15, 46; i. Z7, 65; ii. 15, 19, 51; i. 46, 51-52. 

^ Resch, Das Kindheits Evang. Nach Luc. u. Math., 1897; 
Dalman, op. cit., p. 80; Jiilicher, op. cit., p. 235. 



112 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

work, His public life, His sorrowful Passion and 
Resurrection. Still, the memories of the infancy 
of the Master, to which the legitimate inter- 
est of the faithful was not tardy in attaching a high 
value, although they were not originally topics of or- 
dinary, or perhaps official preaching, must have 
at least been jealously preserved within the bosom of 
the Apostolic College and in that inner circle of 
those who had more or less shared in those primitive 
events. It would be very strange if S. Luke, after so 
plainly asserting his endeavor for exactness, had. not 
taken every means to secure correct information, and 
this under conditions apt to beget the most assured 
certitude. It was a delicate matter, indeed, fully im- 
plying, as it did, his own personal faith and that of his 
disciple; and it was managed at a time when the au- 
thorized testimonies were surely not wanting and were 
easily verifiable. 

Indeed, these prefatory pages bear upon their face, 
so to say, the proof that they are a Palestinian docu- 
ment which goes back to the very beginnings of the 
Christian religion itself. Thus, a notable feature 
is the prominence given to the Temple and its 
religious service. In the Temple is announced the 
birth of the Precursor; in the Temple there lives for 
years the holy Prophetess Anna; in the Temple there 
occurs the Presentation of Jesus; in the Temple His 
parents afterwards find Him engaged in teaching the 
very Doctors of the Law. Similarly, the service of 
the Temple is faithfully portrayed and this with re- 
markable vividness. From the very first pages we 
find the daily worship thus described in its minutest 
details : " Zachary was a Priest of the Course of Abia. 
. . . And it came to pass when he executed the priestly 
function in the order of his course before God, accord- 
ing to the custom of the priestly office, it was his lot to 
offer incense, going into the Temple of the Lord. And 
the multitude of the people was praying without at 



THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 



113 



the hour of incense. ... And the people were wait- 
ing for Zachary; and they wondered that he tarried 
so long in the Temple. . . . And it came to pass, after 
the days of his office were accomplished, he departed 
to his own house." ^ 

A description so minute and recognized by his- 
torians as being exact could have been written only 
by one who was fully informed about the religious life 
of Israel; by one who, as an attentive and familiar 
witness, still living before, perhaps long before, the 
catastrophe of the year 70, when the very vestiges of 
the Temple had disappeared, had kept in touch with 
the liturgic life which, in his recital, appears to us 
in full intensity and in all its fervor. 

What, moreover, is also very striking is that very 
primitive phase of the Messianism which is therein 
presented : Is it not surprising to find that the 
Angel, in order to announce the Messianic destiny of 
Jesus, apparently describes it under the features which 
marked it in the popular and primitive ideas ? In the 
Canticle of Zachary, this local coloring, this rather 
national touch is quite noticeable.^ 

Loisy ventures the suggestion that this portion of 
the " Benedictus " may have been originally a common 
Psalm before it was ascribed " through easily dis- 
cernible additions " to the important personage 
Zachary. He also suggests the same theory in re- 
gard to the *' Magnificat." He, therefore, recog- 
nizes the decidedly primitive character of these two 
Canticles. Nor, again, is it very likely that the so- 
called primitive portion in each of these Canticles is 
entirely Jewish and pre-Christian. Indeed the primitive 
character of the Messianic language is just as striking, 
perhaps even more so, in the words used by the Angel 

1 Lk. i. 5, 8-10, 21, 23. 

2 Lk. i. 32, ZZ, 68-69, 71, 73-74. 



114 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



Gabriel in saluting Mary and for which a like theory 
is impossible. If, then, we admit the Christian origin 
of these supposedly primitive Psalms, we must assign 
their composition to the cradle-days of Christianity; 
while, on the other hand, we are not at all warranted 
in supposing that the so-called adapted portion belongs 
to a later epoch.^ 

We should be of course especially careful not to 
confound the fundamental idea of the Kingdom of 
God, with the more or less symbolic colors under 
which it is presentable. Symbol and figure served 
as a brilliant vesture, as an alluring veil to clothe the 
prophetic oracles. It is true, none the less, that 
the manner in which the Messianic future is de- 
picted in the accounts of the Infancy is much more 
like the language current in Christ's time as pre- 
served in the Gospel and the other New Testament 
documents than that used in the Christian church after 
the Ascension and Pentecost. Indeed, a perusal of 
the discourses of the Apostles as found in the Acts and 
in S. Paul's Epistles would seem to prove that, for 
the purpose of portraying the Messiah's destiny, a 
style of speaking more or less marked by temporal 
and national features, the inheritance of pre-Christian 
tradition, was no longer in use after Pentecost. So 
that, in this respect, the gospel of the Infancy may 
rightly go back to the very beginnings of Christianity. 

This inference is further confirmed by the very idea 
which is given to us of the person of the Son of God. 
As we shall see, the traits revealed in the first 
pages are rather the careful and suggestive Synop- 
tic outhnes of the Saviour's personal manifes- 
tation than the features so strongly illumined and 
placed in bold relief by the Church writers during the 
Apostolic Age. Jesus is presented as the Son of 

1 Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 289 ; Lk. i. 2)^-Z3> ', Lepin, 
art.: L'Orig. du Magnificat, I'Univ. Cath., June, 1903, p. 295. 



THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 



115 



the Virgin Mary, as conceived by the most pure 
operation of the Spirit of God, as the holy and 
blessed Son who shall be called the Son of the Most 
High. Such expressions, no doubt, answer exactly to 
the dogma of Christ's heavenly pre-existence and 
divine Sonship as formulated in the writings of SS. 
Paul and John. And if it seems strange that neither 
His pre-existence nor His real divinity are herein 
formally and explicitly stated, is not this fact also 
a proof that these narratives belong to that early epoch 
when, as if providentially, the manifestation of the 
Messiah, the Son of God, was marked by a kind of 
devout discretion? 

It may be noted, moreover, that, apart from the 
question of origin, these accounts also afford irre- 
futable guarantees of perfect veracity. Indeed, they 
present the Messianic Kingdom, as also the Person of 
the Messiah, the Son of God, in a primitive aspect, and 
devoid of any additional feature which might be due 
to the influence of a tradition prevailing in the Church 
at a later day. Assuredly this fact is very remark- 
able, and testifies in S. Paul's disciple, who edited 
this Gospel, as also to those who transmitted the ac- 
counts which he consulted, a scrupulous care for exact- 
ness. None but a most conscientious historian could 
have thus reproduced the documents in their native 
simplicity without submitting them to the modifica- 
tions or developments which might easily have been 
suggested by the ideas so paramount after the death 
of Christ. 

The humility of Christ Jesus, moreover, is here 
also revealed as in the first Gospel. Is not this fact 
a striking proof of the historical sincerity of these 
narratives ? The early Church placed Christ upon the 
summit of humanity and of universal creation ; it por- 
trayed Him as proceeding from the bosom of God 
the Father, as descending upon earth to redeem men, 
as returning to heaven and seated at the right hand 



Il6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

of God whose power and divinity He shares, and as 
predestined one day to come back to earth in order 
to judge the living and the dead. If, then, the Gospel 
of the Infancy were merely the product of Christian 
fancy, or of the imagination of theologians, would 
its inventor have dreamt of describing Christ Jesus 
as having but a manger for His cradle at His birth, 
as compelled to flee into Egypt to avoid Herod's 
anger, and as passing His childhood in humble submis- 
sion to His parents in the workshop of Nazareth? 
The unpretentious character of these features, as also 
the extremely sane and exquisite style which so elo- 
quently contrasts them with the phenomena of the 
Apocryphal Gospels, is an unanswerable guarantee of 
their sincerity and veracity. 

The very differences between the accounts in S. 
Matthew and S. Luke are, to tell the truth, not easily 
reconcilable because of the little available knowledge 
about this very epoch ; but even such variations indicate 
the historical value of these accounts. Moreover, 
they afford a positive argument for the historical 
character of the basis of information underlying the 
parallel narratives. 

Indeed, S. Luke's remark that '' Mary kept all these 
things, pondering them in her heart," has led many 
eminent Catholic and Protestant scholars to infer 
that the Gospel of the Infancy may depend partly, 
if not wholly, upon the reminiscences of the Blessed 
Virgin herself. 

Godet, for instance, is convinced that the oftener 
we read and re-re'ad S. Luke c. ii, v. 19, the more read- 
ily we will conclude that the first and real author 
of this narrative can only be Mary. . . . Expressed 
in the Aramaic language, Mary's recollections were 
secured by S. Luke both in oral and written form. 
Gifted with an exquisite discernment which enabled 
him to appreciate such gems, he gave to them a 



THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 



117 



Greek setting which still preserved all the brilliance 
of their pristine lustre.^ 

However disconcerting, therefore, to the Rational- 
ist critic the Gospel of the Infancy may be, because 
of its miraculous accounts, an impartial student must 
deem it worthy of notice and utmost confidence. 
These records are certainly not mythical or legendary : 
they trace the facts to their very origin and relate 
them with the utmost sincerity and truthfulness. 

The Nativity. — The dawn of the revelation, 
therefore, is perceptible in the Gospel account of the 
occurrences at the crib of Jesus. From the heights of 
heaven comes the first news of His approaching ad- 
vent. To Zachary, the venerable Priest of the Temple, 
the Angel Gabriel announces that he shall have a 
son who shall be called John, thus betokening the near 
fulfilment of God's mercies, and who shall be called 
the herald of the Lord. The importance of this 
message from on high is fully realized by Zachary; 
for, in the Canticle Benedictus, he blesses God for 
fulfilling, at last, his former promises : He wel- 
comes the new-born son because God has predestined 
him to prepare the way for the Messiah. 

The people themselves share somewhat in this first 
Messianic announcement. The marvelous happen- 
ings that brought it about, the sudden dumbness of the 
aged priest who was detained in the Sanctuary, the 
unusual birth of his son, the surprising agreement of 
Zachary and Elizabeth upon the name John, the 
miraculous recovery of his father, — all this seemed to 
clearly indicate the near fulfilment of some great 
event. People expected that a wondrous destiny, a 
divine mission awaited this child of miracle, and they 

1 Lk. ii. 19, 51 ; Godet, Com. sur I'Evang. de S. Luc, 3rd ed., 

1885, pp. 185, 224,- Zahn, Einleit. in das N. T., 1898, vol. ii; 
Plummer. Commentary on the Gospel According to S. Luke, 
3rd ed., 1900, p. 7; Ramsay, Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? 
pp. 87, 88; Sanday, art.: Jesus Christ, H. D., pp. 643, 644. 



Il8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

went abroad exclaiming : " What an one, think ye, 
shall this child be ?" 

The Messiah is indeed to be born of a virgin at 
Nazareth, and it is the same Angel Gabriel who an- 
nounces this fact to Mary. The son whom she shall 
conceive " shall be great and shall be called the Son 
of the Most High. And the Lord shall give unto 
Him the throne of David His father, and He shall 
reign in the house of Jacob forever." Yes, it is He, 
— the long-expected Messiah. So too, in the " Magni- 
ficat," the Blessed Virgin thanks the Lord for the 
fulfilment of His promises and for His choice of her 
as the instrument of His mercies unto Israel. Joseph, 
also, plays a part in this Messianic manifestation. An 
angel reveals to him the Blessed Fruit of the Virgin 
as the Saviour who would redeem the people from 
their sins. An angel too, reveals Jesus to the Shep- 
herds at Bethlehem as " Saviour and Messiah of 
God." The celestial choirs celebrate the new Messianic 
reign as especially destined to assure glory to God and 
peace to men of good-will; and the Shepherds pro- 
claimed the news of these marvels far and wide. 
And Simeon, a venerable and holy man of Jerusalem, 
who, after waiting long for '' the Consolation of 
Israel," feels himself drawn to the Temple by the 
Holy Spirit so that, before dying, he may behold " the 
Christ of the Lord." Taking Jesus in his arms, he 
salutes the Child as '' the Salvation of God," the 
" glory of thy people Israel," and '' a light which is 
to enlighten all nations." Anna, the aged prophetess, 
also shares in this revelation and speaks of Jesus the 
Messiah '' to all that looked for the redemption of 
Jerusalem." And, finally, the Magi, or Wise Men, 
whom a mysterious star had led onward from the East 
come to seek Him that was born " King of the Jews." 
Nor do Herod or the Scribes mistake the identity of 
this strange personage, and the news that the Messiah 
would be born in the City of David disturbs all 
Jerusalem. 



THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST ng 

Still, it is the design of Providence to cast, so to 
speak, a cloud upon so great a light : it is not its pur- 
pose that Christ Jesus should be manifested suddenly 
and forcibly imposed upon the people. No ; this divine 
work is to allow full play to human liberty. There 
shall be enough light for the enlightenment of men 
of good-will, and not over-much, that the wicked 
should not be dazzled and compelled, as it were, to 
believe in Christ. 

So that, John the Precursor, after the mighty mar- 
vels wrought at his cradle, passes his infant days in 
shadow and his youth in the deserts. And Jesus, also, 
after such astounding events, goes as an exile into 
distant Egy-pt, while, on His return to Nazareth, He 
dwells there in solitude, humbly submissive to His 
parents in the exercise of a lowly trade. No 
more striking manifestations, no more extraordin- 
ary events, so that the commotion, caused by the 
marvelous happenings which accompanied Christ's 
birth, gradually dies out and leaves only the im- 
pression of a long vanished dream. Neverthe- 
less, the first stir is felt, attention is aroused; 
and when, thirty years later, John the Baptist and 
Jesus shall begin their ministry, they shall find many 
well-disposed hearts. And we learn, moreover, from 
the same Gospel of the Infancy, that when Jesus was 
twelve years old, He manifests Himself personally for 
the first time in the Temple, astounding the Doctors 
of the Law by His questions and answers, so that those 
present could have also exclaimed " What think ye 
this child will be?" And, finally, this Gospel also tells 
us that the Child of Nazareth grew in stature, in 
wisdom, and in grace before God and men, thus sug- 
gesting that He would be a great personage. 

Popular Views. — Under what aspect, however, 
did God reveal His Christ? What idea did the vari- 
ous persons who witnessed these earlier manifestations 
possess of Jesus the Messiah and Son of God? Jesus, 



I20 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the Messiah or Anointed of God, was to be chiefly the 
" Saviour " and " Reparator," as is indicated by the 
name which He received from heaven; for, Jesus, or 
leshoua, means Saviour, and hence the Angel said to 
Joseph : '' Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He 
shall save His people from their sins." Zachary fully 
understood this ; for he blessed God for having 
" visited " His people and " wrought its redemption " 
after having " raised up " in the House of David 
*' the mighty Saviour " who should " deliver Israel 
from all its enemies." And Simeon, who was awaiting 
the '' Consolation of Israel," thanked God for having, 
before his death, beheld the divine '' Saviour." So 
too, the prophetess Anna and all who, along with her, 
looked for the " Redemption of Jerusalem." 

Jesus Christ, the Saviour, was also to be " King," 
the inheritor of the throne of David who should reign 
over Israel. It was thus understood by the Magi and 
by the people of Jerusalem : " Where is He that is 
born King of the Jews?" Such was the query of the 
Wise Men. And Herod commanded the Scribes to tell 
him where " the Christ should be born." While the 
Angel Gabriel said to Mary : " The Lord shall give 
unto Him the throne of David His Father. And He 
shall reign in the House of Jacob forever : And of His 
Kingdom there shall be no end." 

Jesus, moreover, was to be King and Saviour, not 
merely in the temporal and material order and for 
the benefit of the Jewish people alone, as they fondly 
hoped, but, in a spiritual and religious sense, for the 
sake of all men. This is the special feature that 
marks the religious and moral character of the mission 
entrusted to His Precursor. The mission of John, 
as the very words of the Angel show, was " to convert 
many of the children of Israel unto the Lord their 
God," and ''to prepare unto the Lord a perfect peo- 
ple." Zachary also proclaims him as the Precursor 
of the Lord and the Preparer of His ways, who should 



THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 121 

" give the knowledge of salvation to His people unto 
the remission of sins." 

The spiritual character of the reign of the Messiah, 
was also to be in accord with the spiritual aspect of 
the Precursor's mission. It is to the Messiah that 
Zachary refers when he says : " The Orient from on 
high hath visited us : to enlighten them that sit in 
darkness and in the shadow of death : to direct our 
feet in the way of peace." He comes to bring calm 
and peace in order that " we may serve Him without 
fear: In hoHness and justice all our days." To 
Joseph the Angel reveals His virginal conception and 
also shows him that the very name Jesus implies sal- 
vation of a wholly spiritual kind. The deliverance 
which He shall bring to His people is " deliverance 
from their sins," And Simeon completes these pre- 
vious declarations : he presents Jesus as the Saviour 
and Enlightener; but he insists upon the universal 
character of this salvation and illumination. He ex- 
claims : " My eyes have seen Thy salvation which 
Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples : A 
light to the revelation of the Gentiles." And he 
further announces that this King, this Saviour shall 
be " a sign which shall be contradicted," and that a 
" sword shall pierce " His mother's soul in order 
that " out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed." 

Undoubtedly, the spiritual and religious character 
of Christ's mission is not yet very explicitly defined ; it 
appears at times only discreetly upon the material 
texture that enveloped the traditional conceptions of 
the Messianic Kingdom, and, as we have seen, this 
very fact is a good guarantee of the primitive nature 
of these recitals. Still, the spirituality of Christ's 
mission is announced clearly enough in order that 
souls of a less earthly and less carnal temperament 
might not mistake it and that they might be better 
disposed to accept a Messiah who was deprived of that 
grandeur, power, and temporal royalty which the 
popular imagination had pictured to itself. 



122 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Do we, then, find in the Gospel of the Infancy the 
idea that Christ Jesus possessed a super-human and 
divine character? First of all, He appears to us 
quite plainly and clearly as man and subject to all the 
conditions of humanity. He is conceived within the 
womb of Mary where He dwells for the space of nine 
months. After His birth, He seems to pass through 
all the various stages of childhood, to grow, to in- 
crease in size, to develop physically, mentally, and in 
character as do others. We may rightly say with 
S. Paul : '' He is born of woman : He hath been fully 
subject to the law." 

Still, if Jesus is really man, He is so in an incom- 
parably higher sense than are other men. He stands 
on a plane apart, in a special condition which sets 
Him far above mere humanity. Whoever is the 
greatest in dignity or the mightiest in power, even 
such a one He surpasses in some sense infinitely. John 
the Baptist is but the prophet and the precursor of 
the Lord: whilst Jesus is called "His Son." Said 
the Angel to Mary : " He shall be great, and shall 
be called the Son of the Most High. The Holy which 
shall be born of Thee shall be called the Son of 
God." And Jesus Himself thus spoke to His mother 
when He was twelve years old : " Did you not know 
that I must be about my Father's business?" thus 
proclaiming Himself the Son of Him who dwelleth 
in the heavens. 

What, then, we may ask, is the nature of this divine 
Sonship thus affirmed by Jesus ? The title " Son of 
God," as we have remarked, has a wide meaning in 
the Hebrew language : it may extend to every special 
relation that implies dependence, union, and love with 
regard to God. When it is applied to the Saviour in 
particular, it may simply indicate that Jesus is the 
privileged Elect of God, the future King of Israel, 
the Messiah. Here, however, its meaning is more 
precise and more firmly based upon reality. 



THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 



123 



Jesus, therefore, is not only the Son of God by 
election and by a somewhat extrinsic choice, but He is 
such through His virginal birth, and in His very na- 
ture. Conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by 
the operation of the Holy Spirit, He is indeed the Son 
of God as well as the Son of Mary. As the Angel 
exclaims to the Virgin : " The Holy Ghost shall come 
upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall over- 
shadow thee. And, therefore, also the Holy which 
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." 

It has been claimed by some critics that the idea 
of the virginal birth of Christ and of His divine Son- 
ship, which is thereby implied, was formulated among 
the Christians converted from paganism, who were 
used to ascribe a superhuman origin to men of 
renown. But this theory is contradicted by all 
the internal testimony which we have seen con- 
cerning the origin of the document as well as by the 
very primitive and truthful character which is im- 
parted to the physiognomy of Christ.^ 

It is also asserted that the account of Christ's con- 
ception by the power of the Holy Ghost is only a 
transposition and an anticipation at the first instant 
of His earthly existence of that descent of the Spirit 
which occurred at His baptism.^ 

Loisy, who# apparently favors this opinion and not 
the former, remarks : " The idea of the Virginal Con- 
ception by the operation of the Holy Ghost is not 
merely, as is readily admitted, a physical explanation 
of the Divine Sonship of Jesus, but also a religious ex- 

1 Hillmann, art. : Die Kindheitsgeschichte Nach Luc. : Jahrb. 
fur Prot. TheoL, 1891, p. 231 ; Holtzmann, H., Lehrh. N. T. 
Theol., vol. i, p. 414; Usener, H., Religiongeschichte Untcr- 
suchungen, 18S9, p. 69; art.: Nativity, E. B., col. 3350; 
Schmiedel, art. : Mary, E. B., col. 2963 ; Rose, op. cit., pp. 
41-85. 

2 Usener, art.: Nativity, E. B., col, 3349; Schmiedel, art.: 
Mary, E. B., col. 2964. 



124 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

planation, like that attached to the idea of the Messiah, 
and a metaphysical explanation, like that which 
belongs to the idea of the Incarnation; it is of the 
nature of both; because if the Virginal Conception 
in a sense demonstrates the Fatherhood of God, the 
operation of the Holy Ghost has not for its immedi- 
ate end the miraculous formation of a purely human 
being, but rather the communication of divine life, 
which makes Jesus, from the earliest moment of His 
existence, the elect of God, the Christ anointed by the 
Spirit, the only Son of the Heavenly Father ; and thus 
is anticipated the consecration of the Messiah which 
the most ancient versions of the Synoptic Gospels re- 
ferred to the Baptism." ^ 

But even this theory is baseless. The event of the 
baptism in no wise affects that of the nativity. The 
Holy Ghost may have, first of all, intervened secretly 
in the Saviour's conception and then, on the day of 
His baptism, may have solemnly invested and officially 
consecrated Him for His mission. The stamp of 
unique grandeur which we must recognize in the his- 
toric Christ agrees admirably with the fact that His 
humanity possessed a unique origin. 

In Harnack's opinion, S. Luke borrowed from S. 
Matthew the idea of the virginal conception, and, 
after making some additions and corrections, intro- 
duced it into a primitive account in which it was 
lacking.^ 

Schmiedel ventures a hypothesis which seemingly 
denies the primitive character of these verses of S. 
Matthew on the supernatural conception.^ 

Both theories are due to a very arbitrary and 
hazardous criticism of the texts and at the same time 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 49 ; Chronique 
biblique in Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 290 sq. 

2 Harnack, art.: Zu Luc, i, 34 et seq.; Zeit. fur N. T. Wis- 
senschaft, 1901, pp. 53-57. 

3 Schmiedel, art. : Mary, E. B., col. 2959. 



THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 



125 



contradict the most ancient and reliable testimony of 
tradition. 

It is, therefore, as man, first of all, that Jesus is the 
Son of God, inasmuch as His human nature was di- 
rectly engendered by God. Naught, however, indi- 
cates that His divine sonship is confined thereto, or 
that He is not the Son of God even apart from His 
human nature, as sharing in some way, in virtue 
of the higher part of His being, in the nature of 
God. And more than one text of the Gospel of the 
Infancy tends to establish a sort of identity between 
Jesus and the divinity. 

Thus the Angel, when announcing to Mary the vir- 
ginal conception, evidently borrows the terms of the 
famous prophecy of Isaias wherein the ''Almah," that 
is, the Virgin, gives to the world a son called Em- 
manuel, or God-with-us. And S. Matthew states 
plainly that it is the virginal conception of Jesus which 
fully realizes that ancient prophecy. Of course, 
strictly speaking, the name Emmanuel which is given 
to the Saviour by the prophet might be taken in a 
figurative and symbolical sense. That is to say, 
Jesus Himself would be a sign that the " favor of 
God" is with us; since, being a gift of His mercy. 
He would be, as it were, a manifestation of His good- 
ness towards us, a kind of visible incarnation of God 
in our midst. It is none the less true that the Evan- 
gelist's simple expression, " God-with-us," wonder- 
fully agrees with the Saviour's real divinity and sug- 
gests this doctrine. 

It is also noteworthy that, in many instances, Christ 
Jesus is implicitly identified with the Lord God, or, 
Jehovah-Elohim. It is particularly so in the words 
with which the Angel Gabriel addresses Zachary con- 
cerning the future destiny of his son John, whom the 
Angel represents as a precursor to " the Lord God," 
and commissioned to prepare " unto the Lord " a per- 
fect people. Zachary, in turn, foretells that his son shall 



126 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

"go before the face of the Lord in order to prepare His 
ways." Now, the whole course of the narrative shows 
that John was to be, in reaUty, the forerunner of 
" Jesus," and prepare the way for " Jesus." Such 
language might simply imply that the Saviour would 
be the representative of God; that is, John, in prepar- 
ing the way for Jesus, might also be said to prepare 
the way for God Himself, precisely because Jesus is 
the representative of God and the instrument for the 
fulfilment of God's work. And yet it remains true 
that the expression used also suggests a real identity 
between Jesus and God. 

Again, in the closing words of the '' Benedictus," 
which seem to refer at once to the Lord God of Israel 
and to Jesus the Messiah, we can perceive an insinua- 
tion of the doctrine of the heavenly pre-existence and 
Incarnation of the Eternal Word : " Through the 
depths of the mercy of our God in which the Orient 
from on high hath visited us. To enlighten them that 
sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; to direct 
our feet into the way of peace." 

Let us say it again, this revelation of the divinity of 
Jesus Christ is not absolutely explicit. It did not enter 
into God's plan to begin by unveiling openly and 
publishing unreservedly so astounding a mystery : this 
prefatory revelation was to prepare the way for the 
more complete disclosures that followed later, and, 
such as it was, it surely sufficed for chosen souls like 
Mary and Joseph, Ehzabeth and Zachary, Simeon 
and Anna. 

And yet it is true that, even in the case of these 
privileged ones, God apparently maintained an admir- 
able reserve in manifesting this divine mystery. Thus, 
in Jesus' intimate dealings with His parents there is 
noticeable an exquisite delicacy. We see, from vari- 
ous details, that the Saviour lived at Nazareth as an 
ordinary child; that Mary and Joseph, who were 
surely aware of the Divine Treasure placed in their 



THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST 127 

keeping, nevertheless piously awaited, to determine 
their attitude towards the Infant God, the times 
set by Providence. So too, Mary does not feel 
warranted in revealing to Joseph the secret of 
the conception, but leaves it wholly in God's hands; 
for she remains in silent adoration amidst the 
wonders accompanying the birth of her divine Son. 
She tenderly treasures the memory of these marvels ; 
she remembers what the Shepherds tell ; she ad- 
mires what Simeon and Anna announce concern- 
ing the destiny of the Messiah; she adores God 
upon hearing Jesus declare that He must be con- 
cerned with His Father's affairs, even though, perhaps, 
she may not fully understand His meaning; she 
watches for the times appointed by heaven, she bark- 
ens to them, she awaits them peacefully, her heart ever 
open to the faintest lights from God. 

Among the guarantees for the truth of these ac- 
counts, not the least persuasive is the fact that such 
reserve is maintained in the manifestation of Christ 
the Son of God, even as regards those very ones 
whom heaven had more grandly favored with its 
kindly light. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Messianic Ministry, 
i. messiahship asserted. 

The testimony of the Gospel of the Infancy to the 
Messianic manifestation at the crib of Jesus is firmly 
rejected by Rationalists Indeed, if they were to ad- 
mit it, they would also have to accept the truth of 
Christ's Messiahship, thus attested and sanctioned by 
heaven; but such recognition is impossible for those 
who, a priori, refuse to believe in any divine interven- 
tion in the world and who exclude the fact of the 
supernatural from history. Nor need we fear to 
repeat it : the greatest opposition to our Gospel ac- 
counts comes from the adherents of this one-sided a 
priori method of reasoning. While, on the other 
hand, as we shall see, every unbiased mind that takes 
the solid ground of historic exegetical criticism as a 
basis, will readily infer that the origin and contents 
of these Gospels are such as to guarantee their exact- 
ness, sincerity and truth, and thus to make them 
credible. There is also, however, a problem still more 
formidable to Rationalistic criticism which, in fact, 
finds it impossible to solve it by similar a priori de- 
nials, — namely, that concerning the Saviour's own de- 
clarations about His Messianic character. How can 
we, humanly speaking, explain in One such as Jesus, 
this assurance of being the Messiah ? Here, truly, lies 
the stumbling-block to infidel criticism. 

The problem of the origin of Jesus' Messianic con- 
sciousness, be it noted, is so disconcerting to Rational- 
ists that their first endeavor was to do away with it by 
(128) 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 129 

discarding that Messianic consciousness itself, that is, 
by denying the historical value of those declarations 
ascribed by the Evangelists to the Saviour when He 
alluded to His Messiahship. Such a radical solution 
was, of course, quite natural at the time when Strauss 
found in the Gospels only the statements of beliefs 
prevailing in the Church long after Jesus' death, or 
when Baur denied that the Gospels were composed 
before the second half of the second century of the 
Christian era. It was then the fashion to attribute to 
the pious fancies of popular imagination the claims 
made by Jesus to the Messiahship and also His 
miracles in proof thereof. But since the middle of 
the nineteenth century what a leap has not criticism 
taken! Nowadays, as we have seen, critics unanim- 
ously recognize that the first three Gospels, called the 
Synoptics, originated in the second half of the first 
century; nay more, that most of the facts which they 
contain represent the testimony of the Saviour's own 
contemporaries, the eye-witnesses of His deeds and 
the hearers of His discourses.^ 

Wellhausen and Wrede.— It is clear, then, that, 
under such conditions, we can hardly attribute to an 
unconscious idealization, later influenced by legend, the 
Messianic declarations which the Evangelists place in 
the Saviour's mouth. We now rarely meet with those 
who, like Wellhausen, think that the faith in Jesus' 
Messiahship was born of the faith in His resurrection, 
and that the Messianic statements which the Evan- 
geHsts ascribe to Him as His own are really due to 
later tradition. Thus, Wellhausen claims that, al- 
though Jesus allowed Himself to be called the Messiah 
and to be condemned as the Messiah, still He himself 
did not claim to be such: He was neither aware of 
being the Messiah expected at the world's end, nor 
did He ever speak of His Messianic return at the end 

1 Lepin, Introd., p. xxx, E. tr., p. 20 sq. 
9 



130 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

of time. And Schmidt, who believes he has proven 
that Jesus had never used the term ' Son of Man/ as 
a messianic title, thence infers that " the opinion that 
Jesus regarded Himself as the Messiah loses its 
strongest support." A conclusion which he tries to 
ground upon a very radical interpretation of the chief 
texts adduced in behalf of the Saviour's Messianic 
consciousness.^ 

The apparent reasons urged by the supporters of 
this theory have been thus stated by Loisy : " The 
preoccupation of the narrators to prove that Jesus 
was the Messiah, immediately rouses the critic to see 
if the point of view of the evangelists conforms to 
the facts. In many details an interest, either apolo- 
getic or simply didactic, has influenced the narration 
of discourses and occurrences ; but this natural ten- 
dency would not fall under suspicion were it not that the 
attitude which the narratives attribute to the Saviour 
seems at first sight inexplicable. Jesus did not, in the 
course of His preaching, announce Himself as the 
Messiah; He silenced those possessed of devils who 
hailed Him as the Son of God; further, the populace 
never imagined Him to have this mission; they made 
Him the subject of most extravagant hypotheses with- 
out suspecting the truth. The disciples alone held 
Him for the Christ and finally declared their faith 
through the mouth of Simon; but the Master for- 
bade them to speak of it to others, so that we must 
look to the end of His career, almost to His last day, 
to find the public avowal of His dignity. It is true 
that, after the Confession of Simon Peter, Jesus is 
said to have discoursed to His disciples several times 
as to the fate that awaited the Messiah; but as the 
general scope of His discourses is founded on ac- 
complished facts and influenced by early Christian 

1 Wellhausen, Israel, und lud. Geschichte, 1894, 3rd ed., 
1897; Das Evangelium Marci, 1903; Schmidt, art.: Son of 
Man, E. B., col. 4739, par. 46. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



131 



preaching, and as they contain no sentence definitely 
reported as the saying of the Lord, such an assertion 
rather comphcates the difficulty than throws light on 
it. May it not be that all that concerns Jesus as the 
Messiah belongs to tradition, and that the reserve of 
the Saviour, as narrated, was really an absolute silence, 
much easier to imagine than the equivocal situation 
described by the evangelists ? " ^ 

It is this theory that Wrede recently advanced in 
emphasizing the idea of the Messianic Secret. This 
German critic claims that there is a sort of perpetual 
contradiction between Jesus' revelations of His Mes- 
siahship during the course of His ministry and His en- 
deavors to put aside from Himself the thought of the 
Messiah, or the disciples' lack of understanding with 
regard to His declarations. To Wrede, however, it is 
all clear enough, if we admit the posthumous character 
of the Saviour's Messiahship. " During His earthly 
life, it is held, Jesus never pretended to be the Messiah. 
After His death. His disciples, being assured of His 
resurrection, — howsoever they had become convinced 
thereof, — were persuaded that it was by this very 
fact that He had become the Christ. Since then He 
was the Messiah after His resurrection, they thought 
that during His life. He must have been a Messiah in 
expectancy, hidden and unknown. Thus arose that 
mingling of light and darkness, of publicity and re- 
serve with which later tradition finally represented 
the manifestation of Jesus as the Christ. Our Gospels, 
it is claimed, reflect, not the historical truth, but the 
faith of the Church on this matter. The idea of a 
Messianic Secret, especially prominent in S. Mark's 
Gospel, is merely a means to hide a fact so embar- 
rassing to the Apologists of the early Church, namely, 
that Jesus Himself, neither in public nor when alone 
with His disciples, asserted His Messiahship. - 

^ Mk. viii. 28; Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 99-100. 
2 Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evang., 1901 ; Bous- 
set, art. : In Theol. Rundschau, Aug., 1902. 



132 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

However plausible this extreme theory may appear, 
still it is recognized by the entire school of infidel 
critics as untenable. In fact, apart from its disagree- 
ment with the Gospel's data, it goes against all that we 
certainly know about the faith of the primitive Church 
in Jesus' Messiahship. 

We may safely say that the beliefs of the early 
Church are known today as they were never known be- 
fore, and that we possess the most reliable informa- 
tion about them. Thus, apart from the Gospels, which 
portray the faith, if not of the first, at least of the 
second generation of Christians, we may refer to the 
Acts of the Apostles edited by S. Luke, through the 
aid of authorized previous documents, about 80 A. D. 
at the latest, and certainly before 70 A. D. at the 
earliest. We have also S. Paul's great Epistles, now- 
adays universally, accepted by critics, and presenting 
such a vivid idea of the opinions current during the 
twenty or thirty years that elapsed after the Saviour's 
death. And if there is one thing that these various 
documents bear witness to, it is the profound faith of 
the early Church in Jesus' Messiahship. If, then, we 
discard the Gospel record of Christ's own declarations 
about His Messiahship and the proofs that He gave in 
its behalf, the undoubtable faith of His disciples there- 
in becomes inexpHcable.^ 

We may ask how it was that the Apostles, the re- 
cent witnesses of their Master's ignominious death 
and so deeply saddened by the violence of the Jewish 
authorities and the distressing events of the Passion, 

1 Lepin, Introd., p. xxxi, n. i, E. tr,, p. 21 ; Schmiedel, art. : 
Acts of the Apostles, E. B., col. 49 (160-130 A. D.) ; Julicher, 
up. cit. (100-105 A. D,), p. 425; Harnack, Die Chron., p. 250 
(78-93 A. D.) ; Weiss, B., Lehrh. der Einleit, N. T. (80 
A. D.) ; Zahn, Einleit, N. T., vol. ii (75 A. D.) ; Headlam, 
art: Acts of the Apostles, H. D., p. 29 (70 A. D.) ; Blass, 
Acta Apostolorum (64-70 A. D.) ; Rackam, The Acts of the 
Apostles (64 A. D.) ; Knabenbauer, Com. in Actus Aposto- 
lorum (62 or 6s A. D.). 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 133 

could have suddenly got the idea that their suffering 
Master was the Messiah of God? How could this 
personal belief become so powerful, so assured, as to 
transform their very souls in a way unexampled in 
history, as to impel them to go into all nations, despite 
all kinds of privations and sufferings, despite death 
itself, in order to preach Christ crucified? 

" Where can we find in the history of mankind," 
says Harnack, " any similar instance of men eating 
and drinking with their master, seeing Him in the 
characteristic aspects of His humanity, and then pro- 
claiming him not only as the great prophet and re- 
vealer of God, but as the divine disposer of history, 
as the ' first born ' of God's creation and as the inner 
strength of a new hfe?" ^ 

Wonderful, indeed ! A belief to which such dis- 
tressing facts seemed to give the lie, yet so ardent and 
assured of its ground that it expresses itself in an un- 
exampled heroism, can only be due to the Saviour's at- 
titude during His earthly life ; that is to say, its basis 
lies in His own declarations about His Messiahship 
and in the invincible proofs that He gave in its sup- 
port. It is useless to seek to explain the disciples' 
Messianic faith by the mere fact of their belief in the 
Resurrection without supposing that it had a previous 
basis. How could they pass at once from the idea of 
Jesus' Resurrection to that of His Messiahship and 
Messianic advent at the end of time? Even from the 
Rationalist view-point, would their belief in His Re- 
surrection be explicable without their previous per- 
suasion that Jesus was not to fall a prey to death? 
And this very persuasion, how can we explain it, if 
we do not admit that Jesus had previously made de- 
clarations significant enough to impress upon the 
hearts of His disciples such a deep conviction, so soon 
after the terrible tragedy of Calvary? But if we 

1 Harnack, What is Christianity? p. 167. 



134 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



must admit that Jesus positively declared His future 
Resurrection, as also the entire collection of extra- 
ordinary facts destined to corroborate His testimony, 
why can we not also admit that He gave similar state- 
ments and proofs of His Messiahship ? At all events, 
the most uncompromising critics cannot refuse to ad- 
mit that the Gospels are substantially historic; and it 
is this historic foundation, which they must accept, — 
it is positively recognized by even Wellhausen and 
Wrede, — which sufficiently and incontestably proves 
that Jesus really proclaimed His Messiahship. 

The most ancient and trustworthy tradition, affirms 
J. Weiss, shows that Jesus considered as entirely Mes- 
sianic the movement which He had promoted and that 
He believed Himself the Elect of God and more than 
a prophet.^ 

'' To say nothing of anything else," remarks Har- 
nack, " such a story as that of Christ's entry into 
Jerusalem would have to be simply expunged, if the 
theory is to be maintained that He did not consider 
Himself the promised Messiah and also desire to be 
accepted as such." ^ 

And Stevens, by way of answer to Schmidt, says 
that " assuming that Jesus called Himself barnasha, 
and that this term means only ' man,' and is not a 
Messianic title, it would by no means follow -that He 
was not, and did not claim to be, the Messiah. One 
finds the Messianic idea connected with Jesus every- 
where throughout our Gospels. He is baptized, 
tempted, rides triumphantly into Jerusalem, suffers, 
dies and rises as the Messiah. It is necessary to dis- 
prove, not merely the Messianic import of the 
Aramean counterpart of the ' Son of Man,' but the 
whole Gospel picture of Jesus, if His consciousness of 
being the Messiah is to be disproved." ^ 

^Weiss, J., Die Predigt Jesu, 2d ed., 1900, p. 64. 

2 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 140- 141. 

3 Stevens, The Teaching of Jesus, p. 90. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



135 



A propos of Wrede's work, The Messianic Secret in 
the Gospels, Loisy observes : " If there is one estab- 
lished fact in the Gospel tradition, it is that Jesus was 
condemned to death as ' King of the Jews,' as the 
Messiah. It would be arbitrary to hold that He had 
given no room for the charge, and had not avowed 
this role before Caiphas, nor Pilate. Jesus, then, 
would so act in Jerusalem that, along with the infor- 
mation given by Judas, He could be accused of Mes- 
sianic pretensions. But, if, whilst in the Holy City, 
His attitude argued such pretensions, He must have 
repaired to Jerusalem for the very purpose of doing 
there what He actually did: He believed Himself the 
Messiah ; and Peter's confession, the disciples' recogni- 
tion of Him as the Messiah, is probably historical. Nor 
is there any reason to question the fact that Jesus be- 
lieved Himself the Messiah when He first began to 
preach the gospel; on the contrary. His conviction of 
His vocation explains His attitude in announcing the 
Kingdom of Heaven." But, if Loisy does not favor 
the views of Wrede and Wellhausen in their total and 
radical expression, he still partly accepts them under 
a modified form. " The main outlines of Mark's ac- 
count," he says, " are to be held as historical. But, 
as for the particular facts alleged by Wrede, there is 
room to distinguish between the different sections and 
the different strata of the editing. . . . The prophecies 
of the passion and of the resurrection, which are not 
given in Jesus' words, are based upon the Apostolic 
catechesis; what is said of the lack of understanding 
on the apostles' part may mean almost what Wrede 
implies, namely, that, only after the resurrection did 
they grasp certain things which, indeed, they could not 
have even suspected previously. . . . There may have 
been also some systematic purpose in presenting the 
testimony which the possessed persons are thought to 
have constantly given of Jesus." ^ 

1 Loisy, art. : Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 296. 



136 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Loisy also elsewhere says : " Jesus did really make 
Himself known to His disciples as the Messiah, and 
the general tendency of His doctrine as to the King- 
dom of Heaven implied the part that was His by right 
in the coming reign of God. . . . Jesus suffered on the 
cross because He avowed Himself, and believed Him- 
self to be, the Messiah. . . . Tradition must follow its 
natural tendency, and was soon to discover, in the min- 
istry of Jesus, characteristic features and indubitable 
proofs of His Messianic dignity. The glory of the 
risen Lord threw new light on the memories of His 
earthly career : Thence arose a kind of idealization of 
His discourses and His acts, and a tendency to sys- 
tematize them. . . . Thus everything assumes, as it 
were, a relation to the Messiah, and all contributes to 
prove that Jesus was the Christ. Nevertheless, all 
these arguments are not the simple expression of in- 
creasing faith. They are, for the most part, an inter- 
pretation of actual facts and occurrences, which as- 
sume a new aspect in the full glory of the Messiah, as 
though they now adapted themselves to the condition 
of the Eternal Christ." ^ 

These views of Loisy refer particularly to certain 
episodes of a most extraordinary supernatural char- 
acter, such as the acclamations of the demons through 
the mouths of the possessed persons, the heavenly 
manifestation at the Baptism, the temptation in the 
desert, the multiplication of loaves, the transfiguration, 
;and the like. This is nearly the same point of view 
that we meet with in the works of Harnack and 
Stapfer. As for the " Messianic Secret," however, 
upon which Wrede outlined most of his theory, Loisy 
gives an interpretation which we will discuss later. 
Like J. Weiss, he explains it by the fact that Jesus 
did not think of attaining to the Messiahship until 
the end of time.^ 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 38, 39, 40, 119. 

2 Weiss, J., Das A I teste Evang. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 137 

It would be useless to stop to discuss a hypothesis 
which, historically speaking, is so inconvenient as to 
render not only obscure, but absolutely unintelligible, 
the birth and death of Jesus as also the origin of Chris- 
tianity itself. So that, we will survey the Synoptic 
Gospels and, from their testimony, we will endeavor to 
determine the various phases which marked the 
Saviour's Messianic manifestation. 

Christ's Baptism and Temptation. — One of the 
prominent facts in the Synoptic account is that, from 
the beginning of His public life, Jesus was aware of be- 
ing the Messiah. This much is clear from the different 
occurrences that signalized the inauguration of His 
ministry. He is, first of all, the Messiah, the agent of 
the Final Judgment and chief of the Kingdom whose 
near approach John the Baptist announces in cautious 
terms. To the crowd that asks Him if he was not the 
Christ, He rephes : " No." But he also says : " The 
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." And again : *' There 
Cometh after me one mightier than I, the latchet of 
whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. 
I have baptized you with water; but he shall baptize 
you with the Holy Ghost." And further : " Whose 
fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His 
floor and gather His wheat into the barn ; but the chaff 
He will burn with unquenchable fire." ^ 

The Baptist's declaration certainly refers to Jesus 
and proclaims Him, in equivalent terms, to be the ex- 
pected Messiah. It is a prelude to the miraculous 
manifestations which occurred at the Saviour's bap- 
tism and which have even a greater Messianic bearing. 
The descent of the Holy Ghost upon Jesus is, in a 
way. His investiture and public consecration as the 
Christ of God. The voice of the Heavenly Father 
proclaims Him as His beloved Son, and thus officially 
declares Him the Elect and Messiah of the Lord. But 

1 Lk. iii. 18 ; Mt. iii. 2 ; Mk. i. 7, 8 ; Mt. iii. 12 ; Lk. iii. 16. 



138 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

is Jesiis really the Son of God in a transcendent sense, 
that is, in virtue of a superior and superhuman part of 
His being? This point we will determine later. If, 
however, the divine filiation, here declared, pertains to 
Him even in His human nature, because of the special 
election or particular adoption of which this humanity- 
was the object on God's part, assuredly there can be no 
question only of a Messianic election or adoption. The 
term " Son of God," which the Gospels invariably 
apply to the Saviour, is at least equivalent to the term 
" Messiah," the full sense of which it contains, if, in- 
deed, it does not imply something more. 

If, moreover, we compare the various Gospel texts, 
we will clearly see the directly Messianic sense of the 
manifestation at the Baptism. Thus, while in the 
synagogue at Nazareth, Jesus implies that His investi- 
ture by the Holy Spirit is immediately connected with 
His anointing and mission as the Messiah. So too, 
S. Matthew applies to Him that saying of Isaiah which 
proclaims Him as the object of the complacency of 
the Most High in virtue of His election for the Mes- 
sianic work. And later, S. Peter indicates more pre- 
cisely the Messianic sense of this text in his appeal to 
the centurion Cornelius. Undoubtedly, then, it is 
Jesus' anointing as the Messiah that is signified by the 
descent of the Holy Spirit upon Him, and it is un- 
doubtedly in His character of Messiah, the privileged 
Elect of God, that the Heavenly Father proclaims Him 
as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. ^ 

From the banks of the Jordan Jesus is led by the 
Spirit of God into the desert. He is there assailed 
by temptations which, though inspired by Satan, are 
still in direct relationship with His Messianic dignity. 
Satan surmises that Jesus is " the Son of God," that 
is, directly and at least the Messiah, and fears not to 

^ Lk. iv. 18; cf. Is. Ixi. i; Mt. xii. 18; cf. Is. xlii. 1-4; Ac. 
X. 38. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



139 



salute Him as such. And since the Messiah was to 
have great miraculous power, he demands Him to 
give many striking signs in proof of His Messiahship. 
Since also, on the other hand, the Messiah was to be 
the universal King, he offers Him dominion over all 
the empires of the world and invites Him to seek this 
sovereignty from himself, as though he had had 
hitherto the whole universe in his power. Jesus repels 
Satan's suggestions, but does not reject the title " Son 
of God." Here, then, is the Saviour's own avowal of 
His Messianic dignity, — an avowal that is implicit, but 
not equivocal. 

Of course, Rationalists of the extreme sort like 
Renan, or those of the conservative school like Har- 
nack and the Liberal Protestant writers, deny the full 
historical truthfulness of these accounts whose contents 
are so essentially supernatural. Still, they have accepted 
these records as the authorized expression of tradition 
as to the fact that, from the beginning of His ministry, 
Jesus was aware of His Messianic vocation. The su- 
pernatural occurrences which are supposed to have 
happened at His baptism, or during His temptation, if 
unhistoric as to their miraculous details, may be the 
figures or symbols whereby tradition has been enabled 
to give a concrete expression and a mystical repre- 
sentation to the Saviour's Messianic consciousness. 

In O. Holtzmann's opinion, " Jesus' baptismal ex- 
perience is thus the vision of His call, analogous to the 
visions which the Old Testament prophets had at 
their respective calls. (Is. c. vi; Jer. c. i; Ez. c. i, ii). 
It is, then a complete mistake to suppose that Jesus' 
experience at His baptism loses in value and signifi- 
cance when it is no longer understood as an objective 
occurrence in the outside world, but is regarded as an 
incident of His inner spiritual experience. . . . The 
really important thing ... is, after all, the awaken- 
ing of Jesus' belief in Himself as the Messiah. . . . 
This belief was first implanted deep in His conscious- 



I40 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



ness on the day He was baptized by John in the 
Jordan. So that, even on the soberest conception of 
history, this moment is one of the greatest turning- 
points in the world's development." ^ 

Harnack, also, remarks: '*An inner event which 
Jesus experienced at His Baptism was, in the view of 
the oldest tradition, the foundation of His Messianic 
consciousness. It is not an experience which is sub- 
ject to any criticism; still less are we in a position to 
contradict it. On the contrary, there is a strong prob- 
ability that when He made His public appearance He 
had already settled accounts with Himself. The 
Evangelists preface their account of His public activity 
with a curious story of a temptation. This story 
assumes that He was already conscious of being the 
Son of God and the One who was entrusted with the 
all-important work for God's people, and that He had 
overcome the temptations which this consciousness 
had brought with it." ^ 

Loisy's views of Christ's baptism may be thus 
stated: The account of Christ's baptism should be 
viewed in a symbolical sense just like that which re- 
cords the formation of His Messianic consciousness. 
All these accounts may easily be reducible to the theory 
of a vision. We are not at all bound to suppose that 
the Dove which the Gospel mentions on this occasion 
was a real dove. And as regards the origin of the 
Messianic consciousness in Jesus' soul, we cannot 
certainly infer it from the texts alleged in its support. 
Apparently, the earliest Christian tradition explained, 
or symbolized it by means of a revelation made at 
Christ's baptism in the Jordan. This may be nothing 
more than the symbolical explanation of a real fact, 
although the episode of His baptism has undoubtedly 

1 Holtzmann, O., Life of Jesus, p. 137; Was Jesus Exsta- 
tikerf 1903. 

2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 149. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



141 



marked a decisive moment in the Saviour's career. 
The account of the Temptation presents symbolically 
and in miniature Jesus' mental attitude and His way 
of viewing His providential role. Jesus viewed this 
role as represented in the scene of His Transfiguration, 
and, in the significant rending of the Veil of the 
Temple, He perceived the relation between the King- 
dom of Heaven and the Mosaic Law.^ 

It need scarcely be remarked that these critics have 
no stronger objection to the internal truth of our 
writings than their personal opposition to the historical 
character of every particularly miraculous account. 
These recitals are given by the Synoptics. They are 
written in a way that is most natural, circumstantially 
exact, and in full agreement with the entire context. 
If we consider, in particular, the Synoptic accounts of 
the Baptism of Jesus, we will perceive that they 
square exactly with the somewhat parallel though in- 
dependent accounts found in the Fourth Gospel. On 
the other hand, they are fully confirmed in the Dis- 
courses of the Apostles in the first chapters of the 
Acts. For, these Discourses reflect the genuine 
primitive belief of the first days after the Ascension 
of Jesus. Now, we find that not only is His Baptism 
placed in relief as marking a decisive moment in His 
career, but S. Peter even seems to formally connect 
with His Baptism the solemn anointing which inau- 
gurated Jesus' Messianic career and His investiture 
by the Holy Spirit. Nor is there aught to prevent 
us from admitting that this descent of the Holy Spirit 
was rendered perceptible by an outward manifesta- 
tion such as is described by our sacred writers.^ 

We may ask, finally, what basis have these critics 
for opposing the literal interpretation of the accounts 

1 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 229 ; Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1904, 
p. 91 ; The Gospel and the Church, pp. 40, 104. 

2 Ac. i. 21, 22\ X. Z7, 38. 



142 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

of the Temptation? In virtue of what principle do 
they claim authority for interpreting and transposing 
the facts? Jesus, the Messiah and founder of the 
Kingdom of God, was to be, thereby, the destroyer 
of the Kingdom of Satan/ We shall see, moreover, at 
the episode of the exorcisms, that the demons com- 
plain that He persecutes them, that they strive to 
counteract His work by prematurely divulging His 
dignity. Is it, then, surprising that Satan should rise 
against Jesus as an adversary and tempter, imme- 
diately after the revelation at the Baptism ? Again, is 
is surprising that God should have permitted such a 
temptation against the Messiah? Should not the 
chosen Messiah live humbly and be persecuted? 
The Father's well-beloved Son, — was He not to suffer 
many things and to perish under the blows of His 
enemies? All the realities of the Temptation are 
understood very well if it be realized that Jesus is the 
Penitent for all men and the world's Redeemer. His 
temptation by Satan is of the same character as the 
Baptism of Penance, the fast in the desert, the priva- 
tions of His public Hfe, the torments of His passion 
and death. 

There is no apparent theologic motive or moral in- 
terest, says Rose, that might have determined the first 
Christian generation, so intensely spiritualized, to 
invent trials that rather emphasize the human as- 
pect of the Saviour's person. We may observe that 
the account must have had its origin in the con- 
fidential remarks made by Jesus to His disciples. But, 
we may ask, is Rose really warranted in adding that 
the narrative, which is substantially historic, may be 
symbolic in its details? His contention is that the 
Saviour had described, under the form of Parables, 
the tests which He had to undergo as Messiah and 
Son of God; that the different temptations were in- 

1 Lepin, Jes. Messie, p. io8, E. tr., p. 156. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 143 

visible, Jesus having withstood them in thought; that 
the demon appeared to Him in a vision which affected 
His imagination; that it was in spirit that He fled to 
a high mountain. In behalf of this view there has 
been alleged a supposed Sermon of S. Cyprian, prob- 
ably after the text edited by Maldonatus. This com- 
mentator, however, utterly rejects the interpretation 
attributed to S. Cyprian; and, besides, we have not 
found this Sermon mentioned anywhere whether in 
the editions of Migne or of Hartel.^ 

At all events, we think it enough to accept the 
formal avowal of our critics, namely, that Jesus, from 
the very beginning of His ministry, was aware of 
being the Messiah of God. 

Christs' Reserve. — If we examine the Synoptic ac- 
counts from the view-point which Jesus took of His 
Messianic dignity, we will find that His public life is 
divisible into two sections. In the first, which ex- 
tends from the Baptism to S. Peter's confession, and 
which probably includes the first two years of His 
ministry. He reveals Himself in an extremely reserved 
manner. During the remaining period, that is from 
S. Peter's confession until Christ's death, the Mes- 
sianic manifestation is still cautiously, although more 
explicitly made, and ever advancing towards its full 
expression. 

As to the duration of Our Lord's ministry, it prob- 
ably lasted for three and a half years. His Baptism 
occurred about the end of 26 A. D., or 779 A. U. C, 
i. e. of the Roman era, or even about the beginning of 
27 A. D., or 780 A. U. C. In April 2y A. D. there 
was celebrated a First Passover; while in April 28 
A. D., there occurred a Second Passover which was 
probably the *' Feast of the Jews " mentioned in Jo. 
V. I, and apparently implying the Spring season to 
judge from the reference to "the plucked ears of 

1 Rose, Evang. selon S. Matt., p. 23 ; S. Cyprian, Scnn. de 
Jejun. and Tent. Xti.; Maldonatus, Com. in Math. iv. 5. 



144 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

corn." Again, in 29 A. D. there was held a Third 
Passover, as is expressly stated in Jo. vi. 4, and im- 
plied by the reference to the plentiful green grass in 
Mk. vi. 39. And the final or Fourth Passover, men- 
tioned by the Four Evangelists, must be that of April 
7, 30 A. D., or 783 A. U. C. Of course, these dates 
are only approximate. Thus, Turner assigns the 
Baptism to 26-2y A. D., the Public Life to two or 
three years' duration, and the Crucifixion to 29 A. D. 
Von Soden dates the beginning of Christ's ministry 
at 28-29 A. D., and His death at 30 A. D. Loisy 
seems to admit this, but only after a superficial view 
of the Synoptic Gospels. In fact, the two events 
above mentioned, namely, the ears of corn and the 
crowds seated on the grass, seem to be well attested 
and to agree with the Gospel of S. John which sup- 
poses several Spring seasons, and, therefore, at least 
a few years' duration for the Saviour's public min- 
istry.^ 

Reserve in Revelation. — Remarkably enough, 
during the early years of His Public Ministry, the 
Saviour apparently takes special means to hinder the 
manifestation of His Messianic character. The 
demons, for instance, " knew Him," and " knew that 
He was the Christ " ; and by the mouths of the pos- 
sessed they saluted Him as " the Holy One of God " 
who was come to destroy them, as " the Son of 
God," as '' the Son of the Most High " who was 
come to torment them. But Jesus immediately silences 
them by a stern rebuke, thus checking their declara- 
tion of His Messiahship, as soon as it is uttered. 

2 Mk. i. 34; Lk. iv. 41; Mk. i. 24; Lk. iv. 34; Mk. iii. 12; 
Lk. iv. 41 ; Mk. v. 7 ; Mt. viii. 29 ; Lk. viii. 28. 

ijo. ii. 13; iii. 24; Mk. i. 14; Mt. iv. 12; Mk. ii. 23; Mt. 
xii. I ; Lk. vi. i ; Jo. vi. 4 ; Mk. vi. 39 ; Mt. xiv. 19 ; Lk. ix. 14 ; 
Mangenot, art. : Chron. Bib., V. D., col. 734 ; Jacquier, Hist, 
des Liv. du N. T., vol. i, p. 12, 2d ed. ; Turner, art.: Chronol- 
ogy, H. D., P. 405 ; Von Soden, art. : Chronology, E. B., col. 
801 ; Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 61. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 145 

This attitude seems strange to those critics who 
say that the above-mentioned events show that, at 
this period, Jesus was not aware of His Messiahship 
as has been claimed by tradition. But as regards 
such an interpretation of Christ's attitude, we need 
merely remark that, during this very stage of His 
ministry, He took the like means to conceal His mira- 
culous power. He acts thus after the cure of the 
lepers and the two blind men, of the deaf-mute of 
DecapoHs and the blind man of Bethsaida, as also 
after the restoration of Jairus' daughter to life. If, 
however, the Saviour thus forbids the publication of 
His miraculous deeds, it is surely not because He 
doubts about their reality. And if He declines the 
Messianic titles whereby the possessed addressed Him, 
it is not because He thinks such titles unwarranted. 
Quite the contrary ; for the Evangelists carefully note 
that He '' suffered them not to speak," precisely be- 
cause " they knew Him," because " they knew that 
He was Christ," and that He *' strictly charged them 
that they should not make Him known.'* ^ 

Nor can we ascribe to a systematic doctrinal pur- 
pose the declarations of the possessed persons, or even 
Christ's attitude itself, as is claimed by Protestant 
critics like Wrede. In Loisy's opinion, the objections 
alleged by Wrede against the Messianic character of 
the exclamations uttered by these possessed persons 
are reliable in the sense that the Evangelist certainly 
wished to assign them to the time of Christ's first 
appearance in Galilee and that they betray a certain 
desire of putting forward the testimony given by the 
demoniacs to Christ.^ 

Noticeably too, the title " Messiah " is not found 

1 Mk. i. 44; Mt. viii. 4; Lk. v. 14; Mt. ix. 30; Mk. v. 2)7 y 43; 
Lk. viii. 51, 56; Mk. vii. ZZ^ 3^; viii. 22, 26; Mk. i. 34; Lk. vi. 
41 ; Mk, iii. 12. 

2 Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis, p. 2^ ; Loisy, Rev. d'Hist, 
etc., p. 517; Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 85, n. i, E. tr., p. 136. 

10 



146 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

among the acclamations uttered by the demon- 
iacs. The terms that they use undoubtedly serve to 
designate Christ. But the Evangelists alone suggest 
the real equivalence of the terms. And their entire 
account implies that this equivalence was merely in- 
sinuated to Christ's auditors to whom it still seemed 
to be mysterious. But, we may ask, is it likely that 
the early faith was handed down in such a cautious 
manner in accounts wherein the Saviour's Messiahship 
is so timidly proclaimed and, at first, seems to be dis- 
claimed by Him ? Given the faith of the early Church 
in Jesus' Messiahship, given, also, its conviction that 
Jesus Himself had published His Messiahship, it is 
probable that the interests of dogmatic teaching, or 
the aims of apologetic essays, would have produced 
wholly different accounts. 

And if Jesus was really accepted as the Messiah, 
which, as we have seen, is incontestable, it was very 
natural for Him to declare His Messiahship in that 
discreet manner to which the Gospels bear witness 
during the early years of His ministry. There is 
naught more conformable with the truth than that 
progress in the process of His manifestation, the first 
decisive step of which is S. Peter's confession and the 
final stage the solemn avowal of Jesus before the San- 
hedrin. And the Saviour's attitude, under the cir- 
cumstances which we are viewing, exactly agrees with 
what must have been the general character of His 
earlier manifestation. So that we may accept as au- 
thentic the testimony of the possessed persons to Jesus' 
Messiahship as also His reserve in accepting them. 
But where can we find the reasons for such reserve? 
Precisely in the Saviour's particular situation, — and, 
indeed, an impartial study of the Gospel clearly re- 
veals them to us. 

We must, first of all, allow for the popular pre- 
judices about the Messiah and the Kingdom of God, 
as also for the probable frenzied enthusiasm and pas- 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 147 

sionate excitement which would have resuUed infalh- 
bly from an immediate and unreserved pubUcity of 
the Saviour's miracles and Messiahship. The episode 
following the multiplication of the loaves sufficiently 
shows to what excess the multitudes would have gone 
as a result of their chimerical ideas about a temporal 
king and a too earthly conception of the Kingdom of 
God. The enthusiastic witnesses of the Miracle of 
the Loaves cried out : " This is, of a truth, the Prophet 
that is to come into the world " ; and, at once, they 
try to seize Jesus and to forcibly lead Him to Jeru- 
salem in order that they might proclaim Him King in 
face of the Roman power. Among the Disciples 
themselves we find traces of the like anxiety. Thus, 
at Jesus' death, more than one of them was utterly 
discouraged; the two disciples, who were journeying 
along the road to Emmaus, exclaim : " We hoped that 
it was He that should have redeemed Israel." And 
similarly, on the morning of the Ascension, the 
Apostles thus besought Jesus : '' Lord, wilt Thou, at 
this time, restore again the Kingdom to Israel ? " Evi- 
dently, to minds thus formed, a revelation made sud- 
denly, boldly, and without previous preparation would 
have been, humanly speaking, untimely and impru- 
dent.^ 

Moreover, along with this mental lethargy, there 
was also a lack of good-will of which we must take ac- 
count. All who heard the Master's words did not 
possess that loyalty and sincerity of soul which seeks 
only after the truth. All those who witnessed His 
miracles did not have an open mind and an upright 
heart, ready to yield to the evidence of facts. Choro- 
zain, Bethsaida, Capharnaum, and even Nazareth dis- 
believed in His words and remained stubborn in face 
of His miracles. The Pharisees were ready to criti- 
cise His every word, to slander His every act, to 

ijo. vi. 14-15; Lk. xxiv. 21; Ac. i. 6. 



148 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ascribe to the Prince of Devils His exorcising power. 
He filled their paths with miracles, but that was not 
enough for the Masters in Israel. They sought a 
miracle to suit their own ideas, — a sign from heaven, 
as though such a sign could have been more convinc- 
ing to them than the cures and restorations to life 
wrought by Jesus. His only answer was : '' An evil 
and adulterous generation seeketh a sign: and a sign 
shall not be given it, but the sign of Jonas the Pro- 
phet." ^ 

The episode of the possessed Gerasens shows to what 
extent Jesus had to take into account the temper of 
peoples' minds and hearts. The country of Gerasa 
was situated in Decapolis on the eastern shore of the 
Lake of Genesareth, and accordingly beyond Palestine. 
There, no doubt, the influence of the Pharisees was 
hardly felt; there the intense Messianic enthusiasm 
was least noticeable, there, above all, the people were 
not favored as much as others had been by His bless- 
ings. Therefore did Jesus take pity upon the terror- 
ized condition of these poor people. He did for 
them what He had not done for anyone before. Far 
from silencing the possessed whom He cured. He sent 
them forth to proclaim the miracle wrought in their 
behalf ; so that all Decapolis wondered at the prodigy 
wrought by Jesus.^ 

Finally, it was part of the designs of divine Pro- 
vidence that the Saviour redeemed the world and ob- 
tained the Kingdom by His death. This He will say 
later on : " The Son of Man must suffer many things, 
and be rejected by the ancients, and by the High 
Priests and the Scribes, and be killed : and after three 
days rise again." Such a divine plan was undoubtedly 
not carried out through necessity: it allowed free 
play to human desires and in no wise removed their 

1 Mt. xii. 38; Mk. viii. 11; Mt. xvi. I. 

2 Mk. V. 19-20 ; Lk. viii. 39. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 149 

responsibility ; and yet it " must " be accomplished. 
Jesus would not hinder it by a too evident manifesta- 
tion of Himself which, moreover, would not have 
agreed with the condition of His auditors' minds and 
hearts.^ 

" Had Jesus declared Himself quite plainly to be the 
Messiah," says Wendt, '' there would have been asso- 
ciated with His person, in accordance with the pre- 
vailing Jewish ideas of the nature of the Messianic 
Kingdom, expectations which He neither would nor 
could fulfil. . . . Jesus after having trained His dis- 
ciples to a right understanding of His Messiahship, 
began openly to claim that dignity." ^ 

Loisy, however, thinks differently. " Where do we 
find," he asks, " that Jesus had attempted the task of 
correcting the current ideas on the subject of the King- 
dom and the Messiah? He proclaims the Kingdom 
and views it in a very spiritual manner, although 
without apologetic or polemic interest." But, if it is 
true that Jesus plans and announces the Kingdom 
in a very spiritual manner, it is also true that He 
thereby corrects those popular and quite material pre- 
judices and that it was an indirect proceeding planned 
by the Saviour. Loisy, moreover, thinks that '* Jesus' 
reserve is easily explained by the fact that the true 
Messiah was the glorious Messiah." He adds : *' and, 
doubtless, also because the public avowal of Messiah- 
ship could not fail to put the Saviour in conflict with 
the political authorities." This last reason squares 
with what we have pointed out, namely, the Saviour's 
necessity of acting in accordance with the providential 
design as regards His death. As to the first reason, 
as we shall see later, it is baseless if, like Loisy, we 
should hold that Jesus did not believe Himself to be 
the Messiah before His Resurrection. On the other 

1 Mk. viii. 31; Mt. xvi. 21; Lk. ix. 22; Mk. ix. 11 ; Lk. 

xxiv. 26. 

2 Wendt, op. cit., pp. 177-178. 



I50 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

hand, it is quite warranted, and agrees with our own 
view, if it means that the Saviour refrained from 
encouraging people to hope in a Messiah who was to 
be only triumphant and glorious.^ 

The necessity of allowing for the disposition of 
men, of gradually correcting the rooted prejudices in 
their minds, in fine, of conforming Himself to the 
providential plan as to His death compelled Jesus to 
make a manifestation that was full of discretion and 
reserve. So that, in the early part of His ministry, 
instead of at first openly announcing His character as 
Christ, He acted otherwise. He preferred to mani- 
fest it indirectly by His conduct and works, to hint 
at it in His discourses by discreet and yet suggestive 
statements, to gradually lead onward men of good- 
will as also His disciples to suspect first of all, 
and then, by personal experience to verify and finally 
to boldly announce this Messianic dignity which He 
will at length decide to avow publicly. 

Doctrine and Miracles.— Jesus began His minis- 
try of preaching with the saying of John the Baptist: 
" Do penance, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," 
thus announcing Himself the advent thereof. The 
glad-tidings of the kingdom form the theme of His 
discourses in the villages and synagogues of Galilee, 
of His sermon on the Mount of Beatitudes, of His 
parables by the lakeside. Far superior indeed is His 
manner of announcing the kingdom than is that of 
John : it is of a transcendent order. He assumes 
the right to choose the preachers of the Gospel and 
officially invests His apostles with the mission of an- 
nouncing its glad-tidings everywhere. He teaches 
with extraordinary authority. The Rabbinical teach- 
ers of His day, who were but the mere reporters of 
ancient tradition, took care to base their pronounce- 

1 Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, pp. 301, 406 ; Bruce, art. : 
Jesus, E. B., col. 2443, par. 17; Cheyne, art.: Messiah, E. B., 
col. 3063, par. 8. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



151 



ments upon the authority of a master at once ancient 
and of great repute. But Jesus corrects the tradi- 
tional teaching, interpreting the Mosaic law anew, and 
completing it by teachings that are most appropriate, 
most exalted, and the most perfect conceivable. He 
speaks always as a master ; imposing His teachings in 
His own name, invoking no other authority than His 
own; so that the people are in admiration at His 
doctrine.^ 

Especially surprising, however, is the contrast ob- 
servable between the supreme authority asserted by 
this young master, and His humble social condition. 
His early days are spent far from the schools and the 
great masters of Jewish lore : His home is a village 
among the Galilean hills. In fact the people would 
exclaim : '' How came this man by all these things ? 
. . . Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary? . . . 
How doth this man know letters, having never 
learned?" Despite the proverbial saying, then, that 
" out of Galilee a prophet riseth not," and the ironic 
query : " Can anything good come out of Nazareth ?" 
the exceptional character of Jesus' teaching must have 
made people esteem Him as an extraordinary person 
and a great man of God.^ 

Again, His miracles served to broaden the popular 
idea of Him. He commands the forces of nature, 
delivers possessed persons from the power of demons, 
cures diseases, and raises the dead to life. The sick 
are brought to Him, and people draw near to touch 
even the hem of His garment; for there goes forth 
from Him a supernatural power that heals all who 
approach Him. When the people see Him casting out 
a devil from the possessed man at Capharnaum, they 
exclaim : " What thing is this ? What is this new 

1 Mk. iii. 14 ; vi. 7 ; Mt. x. 7 ; Lk. ix. 2 ; x. 9 ; Mt. v, 22, 28, 
:^2, 34, 39, 44; Mk. i. 22; Mt. vii, 29; Lk. iv. 32. 

2 Mk. vi. 2; Mt. viii. 54; Lk, iv. 22; Jo. vii. 15; c, Hi.; c i, 
46. 



152 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

doctrine? For with power He commandeth even the 
unclean spirits, and they obey Him." After He 
cures the paralytic, all cry out : " We never saw the 
like." When He calms the tempest, His apostles won- 
der ; " Who is this that both the wind and the sea obey 
Him?" And on His restoring to Hfe the son of the 
widow of Naim as the corpse is being borne to the 
tomb, so great is the religious fear of the people that 
they declare : "A great prophet is risen up among us, 
and God hath visited His people." ^ 

Dignity and Power. — This indirect manner of 
revelation by prophecy and miracle which Jesus pur- 
sued during the first two years of His pubHc life, is 
still further completed by His statements about His 
personal dignity, and by His claims to the most singu- 
lar powers and privileges. He says that He is the en- 
voy of God, that He is '' come " and has been " sent " 
to preach the gospel of the Kingdom, to appeal to 
sinners, to save the lost sheep of the House of Israel. 
In the synagogue of Nazareth, He exclaims that the 
Spirit of God is upon Him, applying to Himself the 
words of Isaiah . '* The Spirit of the Lord is upon 
Me. Wherefore He hath anointed Me to preach the 
gospel to the poor : He hath sent Me to heal the con- 
trite of heart, to preach deliverance to the captives, 
and sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are 
bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and 
the day of reward." ^ 

Moreover, the idea which He gives of' His person is 
extraordinary. He is, indeed, humble, fond of obscur- 

1 Mk. iv. 35-40 ; Mt. viii. ; Lk. viii. ; Mk. vi. 30-44 ; Mt. xiv. ; 
Lk. ix. ; Mk. vi. 45-52; Mt. xiv.; Jo. vi. ; Mk. i. 23-26; xxxiv. 
39; V. and par.; Mk xxix. 40; ii. i ; v. 21 and par.; Mt. viii. 
5 and par.; Mk. v. 21 and par.; Lk. vii. 11; Mk. i. 32, 33; Mt. 
iv. 23; Lk. iii. 9, 10; v. 28; Mt. iv. 24; Lk. vi. 19; Mk. vi. 56; 
Mt. xiv. 36] Mk. i. 27; Lk. iv. 36; Mk. ii. 12; Mt. ix. 8; Lk. 
V. 26 ; Mk. iv. 40 ; Mt. viii. 27 ; Lk. viii. 25 ; vii. 16. 

2 Mk. i. 38; Lk. iv. 43; Mk. ii. 17; Mt. ix. 13; Lk. v. 32; 
Mt. XV. 24; Lk, ivr 18, 19; cf. Isaiah Ixi. i, 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 153 

ity, severe towards the boastfully proud Pharisees, per- 
sistent in declining honors proffered by the Jews, care- 
ful to veil His Messiahship, and dreading to arouse, 
for His own profit, any hope of an earthly and trium- 
phant Messiah. Nevertheless, time and again, and in a 
manner most striking, He declares that He surpasses 
all that was greatest in Israel's past. He is greater than 
Jonas, greater than Solomon. And if He proclaims 
John the Baptist to be greater than all the personages 
of the Old Law, nay even than the Prophets, He also 
makes it clear that John is His precursor, and sent to 
prepare the way for Him; that, therefore, between 
John and Himself, there is the dift'erence between a 
herald and the king whom He announces ; or, as the 
Baptist remarks, he is the humble disciple of a mas- 
ter the latchet of whose shoes he is unworthy to loose.^ 
Jesus claims to possess powers which unques- 
tionably place Him above ordinary men, above the 
most illustrious prophets, and which seem to emanate 
from God Himself. The Jewish Sabbath, for in- 
stance, w^as a most sacred and inviolable day, its care- 
ful observance being regulated by the traditions of 
the Pharisees. But, as we see, Jesus acts as though He 
were master of all that pertained to a day so revered. 
For, it is on the Sabbath that He cures the sick, bids 
the paralytic take up His bed and walk, and allows His 
disciples to pluck the ears of corn. The Pharisees, 
indeed, reproach Him for having acted thus; but He 
reminds them of the practice of the Old Law ; for, if 
He were guilty of breaking the Sabbath, so too would 
be the Priests of the Temple by holding services on 
that day. As He affirms : '' I tell you that there is here 
a greater than the Temple," and referring to Himself, 
He adds : " The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath 
also." 2 

^ Mt. xii. 41, 42; Lk. xxxi. 32; Mt. xi. 9-11 ; Lk. vii. 26-28. 

2 Mk. iii. 1-6; Mt. xii. 9-14; Lk. vi. 6-11; cf. Jo. v. 9; Mk: 
ii. 22, ; Mt. xii, i ; Lk, yi. i ; Mt. xii. 5-6 ; Mk, ii, 28 ; Mt. xii. 8 ; 
Lk. vi. 5, 



154 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Nay more, Jesus claims to have the supreme power 
to forgive sins, a truly extraordinary prerogative. 
Thus, after curing the paralytic at Capharnaum, who 
had asked only for a bodily cure, He utters these as- 
tounding words : "My son, thy sins are forgiven thee." 
Whereupon the Scribes are scandalized, and exclaim: 
" This man blasphemeth : who can forgive sins but 
God only?" His enemies recognize that this is a 
divine power, and yet He persists in claiming it as 
His own. Nor is He content to assert it as His, but 
proves that He possesses it by suddenly healing the 
sick man. He says : " Which is easier, to say to the 
one sick of the palsy : Thy sins are forgiven thee ; or 
to say: Arise, take up thy bed and walk? But that 
you may know that the Son of Man hath power on 
earth to forgive sins. He saith to the one sick of the 
palsy: I say to thee, arise, take up thy bed, and go 
into thy house. And immediately He arose, and tak- 
ing up his bed, went his way in the sight of all." ^ 

A similar scene also occurs at the house of Simon 
the Pharisee : there enters into the banquet-hall a sin- 
ful woman, who proceeds to bathe the feet of Jesus 
with her tears and to anoint them with fragrant oil. 
Thereupon, Simon says to himself : " This man, if he 
were a prophet, would know surely who and what 
manner of woman this is that toucheth him, and that 
she is a sinner." But Jesus forthwith dispels the 
doubts in the mind of His host by forgiving the wo- 
man; thus implying that He assumed the power of 
forgiving sins and proving it by showing that the very 
inmost secrets of her conscience were by no means 
hidden from Him.^ 

The bestowal upon others of the power to perform 
miracles was also, evidently, a privilege quite unusual, 
extraordinary, and wholly divine in character. Now, 

1 Mk. ii. 1-12; Mt. ix, 1-8; Lk. xvii. 26, 
2Lk. vi. 36-50. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



155 



after choosing His twelve apostles, Jesus sends them 
throughout Judea to preach the gospel of the King- 
dom, giving to them at the same time " the power to 
cure the sick and to cast out demons." Nor was this 
power bestowed in vain. The gospels state that the 
apostles, who had set out to preach penance, " cast 
out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were 
sick, and healed them." ^ 

Assuredly, there can be nothing more extraordinary 
than Jesus' claim to act as Lord of the Sabbath, to 
forgive sins, to cast out evil spirits, and to heal the 
sick, and yet there is nothing better established, noth- 
ing more unquestionably proved. During the first 
two years of His ministry, Jesus, therefore, did not 
merely appear as a prophet who stood on an equality 
with the most renowned ones of the Old Law, but as 
incomparably a man of God, as one in some way in- 
vested with the divine power, possessing divine and 
entirely incommunicable privileges, and, as none pre- 
viously could claim, exercising a sovereign authority 
over the souls of men and over all the vast domain of 
nature. 

The people, indeed, had not expected that the 
Messiah would be thus endowed, nor did they usually 
picture Him to themselves in this light. And, on the 
other hand, in Jesus' humble human position, in the 
simplicity and austerity of His life, what contrasts 
must have appeared, and these of such a kind that the 
people considered them irreconcilable with His divine 
pretensions, and incompatible with that ideal grandeur 
and imagined glory of the Messiah-King! Still, the 
Saviour's manner of procedure must have surely, al- 
though discreetly and progressively, led the Jews to 
ask : " The Christ, when He cometh, shall He do more 
miracles than these which this man doth ? " ^ 

1 Mk. iii. 15; vi. 7; Mt. x. i; Lk. ix. 1-2; Mt. x. 8; cf. Mk. 
xvi. 17; Mk. vi. 13; Lk. ix. 6; cf. Mk. ix. 37; Lk. x. 17. 

2 Jo. vii. 31. 



156 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Messianic Allusions. — During this period of His 
ministry, moreover, Jesus did not fail to suggest ex- 
plicitly and with more directness the idea of His true 
Messiahship. Thus, He connects His power over 
evil spirits with the idea of founding the Kingdom of 
God. During His temptation on the desert, Satan 
had claimed an absolute sovereignty over all the 
kingdoms of the earth. But behold, what conster- 
nation He causes in Satan's empire itself ! Often 
do the demons, after being cast out of the possessed 
persons, reproach Jesus for having come to torment 
and destroy their power. If, therefore, Satan is thus 
expelled from His own kingdom, Jesus could rightly 
object to the Pharisees : " then is the Kingdom of God 
come upon you." If Satan's kingdom falls, it is in 
order that the Kingdom of God may be established. 
Who, then, unless the expected head of the Kingdom, 
the Messiah, shall thus establish the Kingdom of God 
as though upon the ruins of Satan's empire ? ^ 

To the disciples of John the Baptist, Jesus makes 
this fact very plain. They ask: "Art thou He that 
is to come, or look we for another ?" The Master re- 
plies cautiously, although expressively. He does not 
affirm, but leaves it clearly understood that He is in- 
deed the expected Messiah. In fact, instead of direct- 
ing the attention of John's followers to some one else, 
He refers to His own works as sufficiently indicating 
His divinity. He says : " Go and relate to John what 
you have heard and seen : the blind see, the lame walk, 
the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise 
again, the poor have the gospel preached to them." 
And it was precisely these very works that Isaiah 
seemed to have considered as characteristic of the 
Messianic advent.^ 

The same implicit method of expression is also 

iMt. iv. 8, 9; Lk. V. 5-6; Mk. i. 24; Lk. iv. 34; Mk. v. 7; 
Mt. viii. 27; Lk. viii. 28; Mk. iii. 23-27; Mt. xii. 28; Lk. xi. 20. 
^Mt. xi. 3; Lk. vii, 19; Is. xxxv. 5; Ixi. i. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 157 

found in Jesus' words to the people after the depar- 
ture of John's disciples. He places John at the head 
of humankind, nay, above all the prophets of the Old 
Law. Whence this excellence of John? Jesus sug- 
gests the reason ; it is because John is the precursor of 
the Messiah. " This is he of whom it is written : ' Be- 
hold I send my Angel before thy face who shall pre- 
pare thy way before thee ' . . . He is Elias that is to 
come." ... If, then, John was really the precursor of 
Jesus, did not this fact imply that the Messiah was 
none other than Jesus Himself ? ^ 

The **Son of Man." — That the Saviour intended 
to reveal Himself as the Messiah is further indicated 
by His employment of the title " Son of Man." He 
undoubtedly made use of it f rpm the very beginning of 
His ministry ; for, at various times during the first two 
years of His public career. He called Himself by this 
title, especially when claiming to be Lord of the Sab- 
bath, and when curing the paralytic ; and in both in- 
stances its authenticity is beyond suspicion.^ 

The term *' Son of Man " employed by Jesus in- 
stead of the pronoun " I," has in fact a definite mean- 
ing, namely, " the man," " the man " whom you see, 
" the man " who is speaking to you, " the man " to 
whom everyone's attention is drawn; and this inter- 
pretation agrees with the very genius of the Hebrew 
and especially of the Aramaic language. 

This title was also associated with the idea of the 
Messianic Kingdom, and perhaps to many it had al- 
ready become synonymous with the title '' Messiah." 
At all events it undoubtedly henceforth had this mean- 
ing in the Saviour's estimation. The " Son of Man " 
to whom He alludes in Mk. ii. 10 is the same person 

1 Mt. xi. 10, 14; Lk. vii. 27; xvi. 16; cf. Mk. ix. 12; Mt. xvii. 
12-13. 

2 Mk. ii. 10 ; Mt. ix. 6 ; Lk. v. 24 ; Mk. ii. 28 ; Mt. xii. 8 ; 
Lk. vi. 5, 22; Mt. xi. 19; Lk. vii. 34; Mt. xii. 32, 40; Lk. xi. 30; 
Mt. xiii. 37, 41 ; x. 23; cf. Jo. i. 51 ; iii. 13, 14; vi. 27, 54, 63. 



158 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

whom He describes, throughout the rest of His min- 
istry, as " the Man " par excellence so often mentioned 
in the Scriptures, the head of the Messianic King- 
dom whom Daniel portrays as the *' Son of Man " who 
shall come upon the clouds of heaven, attended by the 
Holy Angels, in order to receive from the Most High 
a universal and eternal sovereignty. 

Indeed, when interpreting the parables of the Good 
Seed and the Tares for the benefit of His apostles, 
Jesus places the " Son of Man " in the position which 
He shall hold during the last days of the world: He 
casts into the field of the world the seed, that is, the 
word of God, and then, at the end of time, He will 
send His angels forth to separate the good from the 
bad within His kingdom.^ 

However humble, then, this title seemed to be, it 
referred directly to the Messianic Hope. Besides, it 
had the advantage of possessmg a mysterious char- 
acter, and therefore it would not be apt to prematurely 
lead popular enthusiasm beyond bounds, while it was 
also conformable to the idea of a suffering and dymg 
Messiah. Thus did it accord with that prudent and 
gradual method which the Saviour endeavored to fol- 
low in revealing His divinity to men. 

Modern Criticism. — It is claimed by Lietzmann, 
Wellhausen, H. Holtzmann, and Schmidt that, in S. 
Mark's account of Jesus' lordship over the Sabbath, 
the term " Son of Man," means '' every man," or 
*' man " in general. As we read : " The Sabbath is 
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. There- 
fore, the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath also." 

To this we may reply that, first of all, the con- 
junction " therefore " does not necessarily imply that 
man is master of the Sabbath just because the Sabbath 
was made for His advantage ; but it may merely mean 

1 Mt. xiii. Z7, 41 ; cf. x. 23. 

2 Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 174. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



159 



that, as the Sabbath was made for man's benefit, and 
is not absolutely inviolable, it is not surprising that, in 
this instance, the law for its observance was not kept 
by Jesus, " the Son of Man." Otherwise, how ex- 
plain the remarkable change of terms, *' man," " the 
Son of Man?" The two terms, in fact, do not cor- 
respond to the same Aramaic expression. For, in 
Mk. ii. 2y, the word *' man," in Greek, '0 avOponog, would 
be 'enascha' in Aramaic; while, in verse 28 the 
term " the Son of Man," in Greek 6 vlbg rov avdpuTrov, 
would be bar *enascha' in the Aramaic language. 
Since, too, it cannot be fairly maintained that the 
early Christians misunderstood and incorrectly ren- 
dered the idea in Christ's mind, we may ask why there 
should be such a change of terms if, in either case. He 
had meant merely " man " in general ? ^ 

Here, as elsewhere in the Gospels, then, the term 
" Son of Man " refers directly to Jesus. A personal 
title, its meaning, however mysterious, appears, none 
the less, to involve extraordinary consequences. While 
it emphasizes the Saviour's position as " man," it also 
and chiefly indicates the transcendent character of His 
humanity ; that is, " a man," " this man " whom you 
behold, is lord even of the Sabbath ! And here too as 
elsewhere, may we not suppose that the title " Son of 
Man " even designates Jesus as " the Man " par ex- 
cellence? The Sabbath was made for man, and it is 
in His quality of " Son of Man " that is, not simply 
as a member, but as the head and official representa- 
tive of humanity, that Jesus is authorized to thus de- 
termine its meaning and to rule it as its sovereign.^ 

Thus appeared the Messianic significance of this 

1 Lietzmann, op. cit., p. 89 ; Wellhausen, art. : Skizzen und 
V orarheiten, 1899, vol. vi, p. 202 ; Holtzmann, H., Lehrh., vol. 

i,p.256; Schmidt, art.: Son of Man, E. B., col. 4752. 

2 Dalman, op. cit., p. 216. 

3 Driver, art. : Son of Man, H. D., p. 587. 



i6o CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

title, but in a very dim light. Only later would its 
meaning be more clearly discerned, namely, when 
the Saviour should connect it directly with Daniel's 
prophecy. So that, Loisy erroneously questions its 
authenticity in Mk. ii. 28, and wrongly supposes edi- 
torial corrections in all these accounts which have a 
Messianic bearing, his pretext being that Jesus publicly 
declared His Messiahship only on the occasion of S. 
Peter's confession of faith. Apropos of Mk. ii. 10, 
19-20, and 28, Loisy claims that the Evangelist's ten- 
dency to enhance the argument for Messiahship is 
apparent in three instances throughout the account, 
and that twice there is question of the Son of Man, 
although, to judge from the account of S. Peter's 
confession, Jesus must not have publicly styled Him- 
self by a title equivalent to that of Messiah. He says 
that either the texts where Jesus affirms and proves 
His character of Christ belong wholly to a passage 
edited later than the record of S. Peter's confession, 
or perhaps had been corrected and completed, which 
latter supposition he thinks more likely. In answer to 
this theory, we may simply remark that the title 
" Son of Man " was not at all clearly understood as 
being directly equivalent to the title *' Messiah," and 
that, at first, the Saviour probably manifested His 
Messiahship through significant indications and insinu- 
ations prior to proclaiming it explicitly at Caesarea 
Philippi.^ 

So also, with regard to Mk. ii. 1-12, which records 
Jesus* claim to possess the power of forgiving sins, 
such critics a Lietzmann, Wellhausen, and Schmidt 
assert that here also the title " Son of Man " means 
only " man " in a general sense. But their inter- 
pretation is wholly improbable; for, here, as in Mk. 
ii. 28, it can be only a personal title, and if it refers to 
His humanity, it brings out the extraordinary gran- 

1 Loisy, Rev, d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 518. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY i6i 

deur and transcendence thereof. That is, *' a man," 
" this man " whom you see, has power to forgive sins ! 
To wield such authority over other men, is He not 
" the Man " above all others ? To thus share the 
rights peculiar to God, is He not eminently the Man 
of God, the representative and delegate of God?^ 

From the view-point of philology, it is further as- 
serted by Lietzmann, Wellhausen, and Schmidt, that 
Jesus would not have employed this title, since, in 
Aramaic, it signifies only " man " generally, and hence 
could not be made to serve as a personal appellation ; 
that, moreover, it was Greek in origin and resulted 
from^the influence of the text of Daniel vii. 13; and 
that, by mistake, the gospel tradition had allowed it 
to enter into Jesus' apocalyptic discourses on the future 
Parousia, and then in a general way into His other 
discourses.^ 

This radical theory, which a priori involves insur- 
mountable difficulties, is rejected by many competent 
and independent critics like Driver, Von Weizsacker, 
and Dalman. For, throughout the gospels, the title 
" Son of Man " is used only by Jesus and never by 
the Evangelists themselves; whilst the above theory 
necessarily implies that Jesus was not aware of such 
a term and that it became His personal title only 
through the influence of the gospel tradition! Such 
a twisting of fact is truly hardly credible ; for this 
title is found, not in rare and isolated texts but in 
many that are common to two, or even three, of the 
Synoptists, whilst, in the Fourth Gospel, it appears 
with the same character of a title reserved for Jesus. 

Indeed, supposing that this title had crept into 
Jesus' discourses on the last things through the in- 
fluence of the text of Daniel vii. 13, we can hardly see 
how its use would have become so widespread as to 

1 Dalman, op. cit., p. 256. 

2 Cf. loc. cit., Lietzmann, Wellhausen and Schmidt above. 

II 



l62 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

extend to so many texts of a wholly different char- 
acter. It is also very likely that if the Gospel tradi- 
tion had sought to find a suitable personal title for the 
Saviour, it would f!ot have confined itself to the choice 
of a term so lowly and unpretentious as " Son of 
Man." So unreliable, in fact, is the philological basis 
underlying Lietzmann's theory that it is contradicted 
by such noted Aramaic scholars as Dalman.^ 

Several critics, in fact, do admit that the title " Son 
of Man " is a personal one, and that Jesus' use of it is 
authentic; but they hold that He must not have em- 
ployed it before the time of S. Peter's confession. 

Thus Baldensperger thinks that the texts in ques- 
tion were transposed as regards their chronology; 
while Dalman advances this, view as being merely 
probable. Loisy, in turn, says that apparently the 
Evangelists used this title much more frequently than 
the oldest documentary Gospel sources and above all 
than did Jesus Himself; that, to judge from the re- 
cord of S. Peter's confession, Jesus must not have 
publicly assumed a title equivalent to that of " Mes- 
siah " ; and that those accounts wherein Jesus does 
assert and prove Himself to be the Christ were re- 
touched and completed. Let us say that there is no 
basis for the supposition implied by this theory, 
namely, that the title " Son of Man " is directly and 
clearly synonymous with the title " Messiah." ^ 

H. Holtzmann notes the relative rarity of the title 
" Son of Man " in the accounts of the first part of 
Jesus' public ministry. He thinks that, during this 
period, Jesus employed it in an impersonal sense to 
signify " man " in general, and that He used it in a 
personal and Messianic sense only after S. Peter's 
confession.^ 

1 Driver, art. : Son of Man, H. D., p. 581 ; Von Weizsacker, 
The Apostolic Age, vol, ii, p. 127; Dalman, op. cit., p. 234. 

2 Baldensperger, Das Selhst Jesu, p. 169 ; Dalman, op. cit., 
p. 264; Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1902, p. 453; 1903, p. 518. 

3 Holtzmann, H., Lehrh., vol. i, p. 256. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 163 

This view, also, which is utterly discarded by Dal- 
man. Driver, and Loisy, is certainly a mere expedient; 
for granting that the Saviour used this title from the 
very beginning of His ministry, it is very unlikely 
that He disclosed its true significance only at a later 
period. Everything gives the impression that, from 
first to last, Jesus Christ employed this term to design- 
ate Himself and to suggest His Alessianic character, 
even though it must not have been clearly perceived 
as a Messianic title until after His later declarations.^ 

Renan says that Jesus " had been convinced that the 
prophets had written only with Him in view. He re- 
cognized Himself in their sacred oracles ; He regarded 
Himself as the mirror in which all the prophetic spirit 
of Israel had read the future."^ 

In Harnack's opinion, '' the very expression, ' Son 
of Man,' — that Jesus used it is beyond question, — 
seems to be intelligible only in a Messianic sense." ^ 

Says Dalman: '' The only genuine Aramaic term 
which suggests b vlhg rov avdpuTtov (the Son of Man) is 
bar enasha. This term did not properly belong to the 
common language of the Palestinian Jews as a term 
for " man " ; it was characteristic rather of the ele- 
vated diction of poetry and prophecy. To the Jews 
it will have been known purely as a biblical word. 
The Jewish hearer will therefore have had recourse 
in the first place to Scripture for an explanation of 
the strange use of bar enasha on the hps of Jesus. 
And Scripture offered the Hke Aramaic expression 
only in Dan. vii. 13, where it denotes a definite per- 
sonality, which, further Jewish exegesis sometimes 
identified exphcltly with the Messiah. . . . Moreover, 
the " One like to a son of man " there mentioned was 

^Dalman, op. cit., p. 264; Driver, art.: Son of God, H. D., 
p. 587; Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 518. 
2 Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 267. 
^ Harnack, What is Christianity f p. 140. 



164 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

to be brought down on the clouds of heaven in order 
to be master of the world." ^ 

This title also denotes Jesus' special relation towards 
humanity, and, thus viewed, it is at once a title of 
humility and of grandeur. It seems, indeed, to sug- 
gest the frailty of this Son of Man when confronting 
His Messianic dignity: Jesus designates Himself as 
that member of the human race, powerless by its na- 
ture, whom God will make the Lord of the world.^ 

On the other hand, this appellation seemingly points 
to Jesus as " the Man " par excellence, the ideal type 
of human nature, the chief and the representative of 
humanity.^ 

" This comprehensive and deeply significant title," 
says Sanday, " touched at the one end the Messianic 
and eschatological expectation through the turn which 
had been given to it in one section of Judaism, i. e. 
the Book of Enoch. At the other and opposite end, it 
touched the idea of the Suffering Servant. But at the 
centre, it is broadly based upon an infinite sense of 
brotherhood with toiling and suffering humanity which 
He, who most thoroughly accepted its condition, was 
fitted also to save." * 

" The name Messiah," says Dalman, " denoted the 
Lord of the Messianic age in His capacity as Ruler. 
. . . But the ' one like unto a Son of Man ' of Dan. 
vii. 13, has still to receive the sovereignty."^ 

B. Weiss, whose views are shared by Wendt, Von 

1 Dalman, op. cit., pp. 256, 257; Holtzmann, Lehrb., vol. i, 
p. 250; Baldensperger, op. cit., p. 169; Weiss, J., Die Predigt 
Jesus, 2d ed., 1900; Fiebig, Der Menschensohn, 190 1 ; Weiss, 
B., Bihl. Theol. N. T., vol. i, p. 73; Wendt, op. cit, German 
ed., p. 426; Stevens, Theol. A^. T., p. 51. 

2 Dalman, op. cit., p. 265 ; Wendt, op. cit. 
^ Driver, op. cit., p. 585. 

4 Sanday, art. : Jesus Christ, H. D., p. 623. 
° Dalman, op. cit., p. 265 ; Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1902, 
p. 543; Sanday, loc. cit., p. 623. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 165 

Weizsacker, and Driver, holds that Jesus " did not re- 
gard this designation of Himself as a direct designa- 
tion, which was generally intelligible as such, of His 
Messiahship. Not until Jesus Himself, by the use of 
this name, led them to remember Dan. vii. 13, could 
it be regarded as such. This, however, is quite in 
keeping with the manner in which Jesus, during the 
greater part of His activity, usually avoided the direct 
proclamation of His Messiahship so that He might 
not encourage the hopes which were connected with 
the current Messianic names." ^ 

Resume. — During the first two years of His min- 
istry, therefore, it seems that Jesus did not directly 
and explicitly manifest His Messianic dignity, al- 
though He revealed it in an admirably significant man- 
ner. To a people blindly prejudiced and ill-disposed 
to hearken to the truth, He does not speak too ex- 
plicitly: He makes a discreet, progressive and con- 
tinuous revelation, which works its way slowly but 
surely into the souls of men. 

And after such manifestation, what was the popular 
idea of Jesus? "A great prophet is risen up among 
us,*' exclaims the crowd upon witnessing the miracle 
at Naim, " and God hath visited His people." A great 
prophet, such is the popular view of Jesus at the close 
of His second year's ministry. Some say : " It is a 
prophet, as one of the prophets." Others exclaim 
that He is one of the prophets of old, like Jeremais 
for instance, who has returned to earth. Others again 
say that He is Elias. Apparently, therefore, the peo- 
ple were content with this, the majority not going so 
far as to identify Him with the Messiah. Jesus was, 
in fact, so far from acting like the imagined ideal 
Messiah ! For would not the expected Messiah im- 
mediately secure the redemption of Israel? Would 

1 Weiss, B., Bihl. Theol, vol, i, p. 74; Wendt, op. cit., p. 
436 (Gr, ed.) ; Von Weizsacker, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 127; Driver, 
op. cit., p. 586. 



1 66 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

He not come as ruler of the Kingdom of God in all the 
splendor of His glory and regal power? 

To secure belief in His Messiahship, such as it was 
manifested in Him, Jesus had to achieve a great re- 
form in the Messianic ideas. All the strategy, so to 
say, of the first two years of His public ministry, and 
we may add, of the third, was planned with the view 
of leading His disciples to the conviction of the reality 
of His Messiahship, and thereby to convince them of 
the erroneous character of their pre-conceived notions 
of the Messiah. On several occasions during the 
course of these first two years of His ministry, the 
people were so surprised that, despite the rather un- 
accountable contrast between Jesus' lowly personality 
and the position of that ideal Christ whom they had 
dreamt of, they had asked if this extraordinary won- 
der-worker was not the long-looked-for Christ. 

'' Is not this the Son of David ?", exclaim the wit- 
nesses of the heahng of the man possessed by a deaf 
and dumb demon. But, unfortunately, the Pharisees 
are at hand to check the growing faith of the by- 
standers, and go so far as to accuse Jesus of perform- 
ing miracles by the power of Satan. Nevertheless, the 
two blind men of Capharnaum, as also the Chanaanite 
woman, do not hesitate to call Him by the title " Son 
of David." ^ 

His disciples, too, as they beheld their divine Master 
walk upon the waters of the Sea of Galilee, and save 
their boat by calming the tempest, are so filled with 
religious wonder that they cast themselves at His feet 
and cry out : " Thou art truly the Son of God !" ^ 

The Fourth Gospel, finally, bears witness to the 
same prevailing popular opinion concerning the Mes- 
siah, after the miracle of the multiplication of the 
loaves : an opinion which, as we know, Jesus Himself 
declined to countenance, by fleeing away to the re- 

1 Mt xii. 2Z, 24; ix. 27; XV. 21. ^yit. xiv. 23. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 167 

cesses of the mountain : " This is of a truth the prophet 
that is to come into the world," that is, the expected 
Messiah.^ 

Later Period : Explicit Avowals.— A great work, 
therefore, had already been achieved in the souls of 
men at the opening of the final year of Christ's public 
ministry. The hour had now come to strike the blow. 
It happened at Caesarea Philippi. Still proceeding 
very carefully and cautiously, Jesus leads His dis- 
ciples to express their views on His person. Their 
belief was not to be the result of any direct statement 
on His part, but the spontaneous growth of their per- 
sonal experience. Thus far, He had avoided explain- 
ing the significance of His Messiahship : He was con- 
tent to manifest and prove it by His works. Now, 
however. His disciples have seen and heard enough : 
their conviction is settled ; so that He asks them to pro- 
claim it themselves. He says : " But you, whom do 
you say that I am ?" 2 

Simon Peter replies in the name of the twelve 
apostles. He had previously, indeed, declared His 
faith in the Saviour after the famous discourse de- 
livered by Jesus on the Bread of Life when some of 
the disciples left the Master. " We have believed 
and have known that thou art the Christ the Holy One 
of God," said Simon on that occasion ; and, perhaps, 
this profession of faith was not so firm nor as solemn 
as the present one. Now, he boldly proclaims His be- 
lief in the Messiahship of Jesus : " Thou art the Christ 
. . . the Christ of God . . . the Christ, the Son of the 
living God." By His manner and by His words, the 
Saviour approves and confirms the faith thus ehcited; 
by His question ; but He also advises His disciples not 
to tell the people that He is really the Christ ; and His 
motives for so doing are known. He apparently now 
insists upon the necessity of not hindering, by an un- 

1 Jo. vi. 14. 2 Mk, viii. 29; Mt. xvi, 15; Lk. ix. 20. 



i68 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

timely revelation, the fulfilment of those providential 
designs whereby, as it was written. He should be re- 
pudiated by the people, condemned by the Jewish reli- 
gious authorities, and put to death.^ 

The manifestation of Caesarea Philippi grows 
clearer at the Transfiguration, although even here 
the Saviour maintains a rather passive attitude. The 
Father it is who reveals the Son on this occasion, and 
in terms like those uttered at the Baptism : " This is 
My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased : hear ye 
Him." Moses and Elias are also present as witnesses 
of the event. As representatives of the Law and the 
Prophets, they appear at the side of Jesus as His aids ; 
and render homage to the founder of the New Alli- 
ance, to Christ towards whom converges the entire 
Old Testament. And the mystery of the Transfigura- 
tion itself affords the Apostles a physical experience 
of that glory which will later surround Jesus, the 
triumphant Messiah.^ 

*' The name Messiah," says Dalman, " denoted the 
Lord of the Messianic age in His capacity as Ruler 
. . . But the ' One Hke to a Son of Man ' of Daniel 
vii. 13, has still to receive the sovereignty." ^ 

The Suffering Messiah. — The Saviour, however, 
as at Caesarea, still continues to urge silence upon the 
privileged witnesses of His glory, even until the day 
of His death and of His resurrection; for, as it was 
written, the Son of Man was destined to shameful suf- 
ferings. 

Again, He reveals His Messiahship through those 
unusual terms that portray His mission and person, 
and especially through His explicit references to His 
advent as the Son of Man at the end of time. Nor 

1 Jo. vi. 70. In the Greek extus Receptus and the Latin 
Vulgate we read : " Thou art the Christ, the Son of God," 

2 Mk. viii. 29; Lk, ix. 20; Mt. xvi. 16, 17-19. 

3 Mk. ix. 6; Mt. xvii. 5; Lk. ix. 35; Dalman, op. cit., p. 276; 
Mk. viii. 34; Lk. ix. 2$; xiv. 25-27; Mt. x. 37-39. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 169 

are the Apostles alone the witnesses of such declara- 
tions ; for the people themselves are often mentioned 
as being present along with His disciples, thus form- 
ing together with the inner circle of followers, a 
second group of witnesses and auditors. Thus, after 
confirming Peter's faith and forbidding His Apostles 
to publish the fact of His Messiahship, Jesus calls 
'' the multitude together with His disciples," and ad- 
dresses to the assembly these fervent words: " If any 
man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and 
take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoso- 
ever will save his life, shall lose it; for he that shall 
lose his life for My sake shall save it. . . . For he that 
shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him the 
Son of Man shall be ashamed when He shall come 
in His majesty, and that of His Father, and of the 
holy angels." Under the figure of the incomparable 
glory which Jesus asserted as His own and in His re- 
lation towards God and men, the people could readily 
perceive His true character as the Christ.^ 

And again, " when great multitudes stood about 
Him, so that they trod one upon another," Jesus thus 
proclaims Himself as the supreme judge at the end of 
time : " Whoever shall confess me before men, him 
shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of 
God. But he that shall deny me before men, shall be 
denied before the angels of God." ^ 

At another time, as the Saviour '' went through 
the cities and towns teaching, and making His jour- 
ney to Jerusalem," a man from the crowd said to Him : 
"Lord, are they few that are saved?" But Jesus re- 
plies, not to the man, but to the people themselves, and 
in this response He clearly presents Himself to them 
as The One who, at the end of days, shall act as 
master of the Kingdom, and pronounce authoritatively 

^ Mk. viii. 34-38 ; Mt, xvi. 24-28 ; Lk. ix. 23-26, 
?Lk. xii. I, 8-9; cf. Mt. X. 32, 



lyo CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the sentence which will admit His disciples therein and 
exclude sinners therefrom. He tells them : *' Strive to 
enter by the narrow gate ; for many, I say to you, shall 
seek to enter, and shall not be able. But when the 
master of the house shall be gone in, and shall shut the 
door, you shall begin to stand without, and knock at 
the door, saying: Lord, open to us. And He an- 
swering, shall say to you : I know you not whence you 
are. Then shall you begin to say: We have eaten 
and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught us in 
our streets. And He shall say to you : 1 know you 
not whence you are: depart from me, all ye workers 
of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of 
teeth, when you shall see Abraham and Isaac, and 
Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, 
and you yourselves thrust out." ^ 

All these declarations, so cautiously but unequivo- 
cally made, serve to gradually extend the Messianic 
manifestation beyond that inner circle of His apostles. 
But Jesus does not content Himself with declaring 
His Messiahship in this manner: as to the apostles, 
so to the people He reveals the suffering destiny 
awaiting Him and the delay that will retard His final 
advent as the triumphant Messiah. 

Thus, even in the beginning of His ministry, the 
Saviour, while addressing the Pharisees and the dis- 
ciples of the Baptist, had mysteriously suggested the 
prospect of His death : " Can the children of the mar- 
riage fast, as long as the bridegroom is with them? 
As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they 
cannot fast. But the days will come when the bride- 
groom shall be taken away from them; and then they 
shall fast in those days." ^ 

It is especially, however, towards the approach of 
Holy Week that Jesus multiplies His declarations on 

1 Lk. xiii. 22-29 ; cf. Mt. vii. 21-23. 

2 Mk. ii. 19-20; Mt. ix. 15; Lk. v. 34-35; cf. Lepin, Jesus 
Messie, p, 194, E. tr., p. 239. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



171 



this subject. Undoubtedly the circle of Apostles was 
not without the usual crowd of people when, to the 
question put by the sons of Zebedee about the first 
places in the Kingdom, Jesus thus significantly an- 
swered : " Can you drink of the chalice that I drink 
of, or be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am 
baptized? . . . The Son of Man is not come to be min- 
istered unto, but to minister, and to give His Hfe a 
redemption for many." Again, at the scene which oc- 
curred at the house of Simon the leper, there were 
Hkely others present besides the Apostles, and they 
also heard Jesus say, in behalf of Alary of Bethany: 
'' Let her alone : why do you molest her ? She hath 
wrought a good work upon me. For the poor you 
have always with you . . . but me you have not al- 
ways. . . . She is come beforehand to anoint my body 
for the burial." And the Pharisees, who had come to 
question Jesus about the advent of the Kingdom of 
God, were surely present even when He foretold to 
His disciples : "As the lightning that lighteneth from 
under heaven shineth unto the parts that are under 
heaven, so shall the Son of Man be in His day. But 
first He must suffer many things, and be rejected by 
this generation." And, finally, it is surely to dispel 
the opinion of the multitudes concerning the imme- 
diate approach of the Kingdom of Heaven, that the 
Saviour, while going up to Jerusalem, relates the par- 
able of the Ten Pounds, wherein He represents Him- 
self under the symbol of a nobleman who had to go 
away into " a far country to receive for himself a king- 
dom and then to return." ^ 

Such a manifestation on the part of Christ Jesus, at 
once so discreet and so significant, although it was still 
conflicting with the former messianic misconceptions 
and the decided opposition of the Pharisees, must 
have, however, strengthened, in better disposed souls, 

^ Mk. iv. 6-8; Mt. xxvi. 10-12; Jo. xii. 7-8; Lk. xvii. 20, 
24-25; cf. Lk. xvii. 26, 30; xviii. 8; Lk. xix. 11-12. 



172 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

that faith which we have seen growing during the 
first two years of His ministry. In the Fourth Gospel, 
too, we find a very detailed and graphic account of 
the changes that were taking place in the minds of 
men, and of the varied opinions which the multi- 
tudes had of Him towards the close of this part of His 
career. " Some said : He is a good man. And others 
said: No; but He seduceth the people. And yet no 
man spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews." 
Nevertheless, after hearing Him speak, some among 
the multitude said : ''This is the prophet indeed. Others 
said: This is the Christ." They had once asked: 
" When the Christ cometh, shall He do more miracles 
than these which this man doth?" But soon the ob- 
jection was heard: "Doth the Christ come out of 
Galilee? Doth not the Scripture say: that Christ 
cometh of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem, 
the town where David was? So there arose a dis- 
sension among the people because of Him." And 
even though the Pharisees had decided among them- 
selves that " if any man should confess Him to be 
Christ, he should be put out of the Synagogue," they 
could not prevent the popular manifestation of faith 
in the Saviour. " li we let Him alone so, all will be- 
lieve in Him," they murmured. And very soon they 
would say to one another : " Do you see that we pre- 
vail nothing? Behold the whole world is gone after 
Him!"i 

The Supreme Revelation of Holy Week.— The 
Messianic faith of the multitude, after increasing thus 
far to the end of Jesus' ministry, burst forth on Palm 
Sunday. The day before, amidst a numerous crowd, 
the two blind men of Jericho, after crying out to the 
Saviour " Son of David, have pity on us !", were mira- 
culously cured in recompense for their faith and in 
confirmation of it. And on the very day of His tri- 
umphal entry Jesus is everywhere acclaimed : " Son of 

^ Jo. vii. 12-13, 31, 40, 41, 41-42, 43; Jo. ix. 22; xi. 48; xii. 19. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 1^3 

David/' " King of Israel." All beg a blessing on the 
advent " of the kingdom of David," and long life to 
Him " who cometh " to establish the kingdom " in the 
name of the Lord." Jesus, who has in some way called 
forth this triumph, accepts the ovations of the 
crowd, and despite the Pharisees' murmurs, expressly 
approves the Messianic salutations of His disciples and 
the applause of the children of the Temple : " I say to 
you that, if these shall hold their peace, the stones will 
cry out." . . . Yea, have you never read : Out of the 
mouths of infants and sucklings Thou hast perfected 
praise ? " ^ 

It is chiefly in Holy Week, however, that Jesus em- 
phasizes His former statements. To the incredulous 
Pharisees, and to those who proudly demanded a rea- 
son for His asserted powers. He represents Himself 
indirectly, and under a veil, but clearly and precisely, 
in the parable of the faithless husbandmen, as God's 
well-beloved Son, incomparably greater than the 
prophets who were only servants. And to the Apostles 
in still more explicit terms He speaks boldly of the 
ruin of Jerusalem, of His future advent as Son of 
Man in the clouds of heaven, attended by saints and 
angels in the glory of God, for the supreme judgment 
and universal retribution.^ 

Jesus, finally, officially seals His Messianic manifes- 
tation by plainly telling Caiphas and Pilate, with the 
full prospect of death before Him, that He is *' the 
Christ the Son of God," or " the Beloved Son," who, 
as " Son of Man " shall be " sitting on the right hand 
of the power of God, and coming with the clouds of 
heaven." ^ 

1 Mk. X. 47-48; Mt. XX. 30-31; Lk. xviii. 38-39; Mt. xxi. 9; 
Lk. xix. 38; Jo. xii. 13; Mk. xi. 10; Mt. xxi. 9; Lk. xix. 38; 
Jo. xii. I ; Lk. xix. 40 ; Mt. xxi. 16. 

2 Mk. xi. 28 ; Mt. xxi. 23 ; Lk. xx. 2 ; Mk. xii. ; Mt. xxi. ; 
Lk. XX.; cf. the Parable, Mt._xxi. 1-14; Mk. xiii. ; Mt. xxiv. 
and XXV. ; Lk. xi. ; cf. Lk. xxii. 29-30. 

^ Mt. xxvi. 63 ; Lk. xxii. 70 ; Mk. xiv. 61 ; Mk. xiv. 62 ; Mt. 
xxvi. 64; Lk. xxii. 69. 



174 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

II. MEANING OF HIS MESSIAHSHIP. 

The Final Advent. — Thus, as we have seen, 
Jesus beheves and calls Himself the Messiah: this 
point is most certainly demonstrated and is admitted 
nowadays by all critics. But, before considering the 
question as to how Jesus could have come to believe 
and style Himself the Messiah, we must first see in 
what sense this title belongs to Him. In what meas- 
ure, and in what manner did He precisely realize this 
special and essential function during His earthly car- 
reer? A solution has been presented by Loisy, who 
follows in the lead of J. Weiss, and we shall examine 
his answer in detail. 

The title of Messiah, in the opinion of J. Weiss, 
designates Him as the sovereign of the Messianic king- 
dom, the king of the New Jerusalem, the chief of 
the society of the elect. This social status, however, 
will not be realized until the end of time; only then 
this title will really and properly belong to Jesus. 
Why? Because only then will this special and essen- 
tial function begin to be fulfilled. Until then Jesus 
is He who is yet to be the Messiah ; He is not as yet 
properly speaking, the Messiah. At most. He is the 
Messiah in a preliminary sense, that is by vocation 
and destiny.^ 

It is Loisy's theory that '' as the Kingdom is essen- 
tially future, the Messiah's position is essentially 
eschatological. Christ is chief of the society of the 
elect. The ministry of Jesus is only a preliminary 
phase of the Kingdom of Heaven and of the role 
proper to the Messiah. In one sense, Jesus is the 
Messiah, but, in another. He is still to become the 
Messiah. He was so in that He personally was called 
upon to rule the New Jerusalem ; but He was not yet 
so, since the New Jerusalem did not exist yet, and 

1 Weiss, J., Die Predigt Jesus, 2d ed., 1900; cf. Wrede, Das 
Messiasgeheimnis in Evang., 1901. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 175 

since the Messianic power had no chance for its ex- 
ercise." ^ 

In criticism of the foregoing, we may say that we 
readily grant that the title of Messiah pertains to the 
Saviour in a special manner at the end of time. For, 
then, indeed, shall be fully realized the Messianic 
Kingdom, — then, indeed, shall be definitely inaugur- 
ated Christ's universal and eternal dominion. Never- 
theless, it does not follow that we have to wait until 
then to find a first realization of that title, and to wit- 
ness the beginning of those realities which it implies. 
Is it, indeed, quite certain that the Messianic Kingdom 
shall begin only at the end of time? No doubt then 
shall occur its final consummation, its triumph, its 
perfect realization. Nay more, — then shall begin the 
solemn inauguration of its glorious and final phase, the 
beginning of the eternal Kingdom of God in the high- 
est. Does not, however, this Kingdom presuppose a 
former and real existence, although not under the same 
form ; a phase wherein it is truly realized as the King- 
dom of God on earth, if not the final Kingdom of 
God in heaven; a phase wherein it is, indeed, in a 
condition preparatory to its final establishment in its 
heavenly and perfect form, but wherein, nevertheless, 
it is really carried on in the earthly form. So that, 
since the Messianic Kingdom is already realized in 
a true sense during this preliminary phase, the title 
of Messiah is rightly attributed to Jesus at that time. 
Even supposing, however, that this first question 
should be answered in the negative, we might put 
another: Is the title of Messiah so closely, and so 
essentially related to the final realization of the Mes- 
sianic reign that it could not properly belong to the 
Saviour during its preparatory stage? Was not this 
very preparation, such as Jesus realized it, also a 
Messianic function, — perhaps not the final one, but 

^ Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 101-102. 



176 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

still strictly and properly Messianic such that even 
it alone fully warrants the title of Messiah given to 
the Saviour? These are the questions at issue. 

For the present, however, we shall view them in- 
directly. After surveying the evangelical and post- 
evangelical texts, the Saviour's own declarations and 
those of the first Christian generation, we shall see 
whether or not He had given the title of Messiah, 
whether, also. He Himself employed it apart from 
the glorious realization of the Kingdom and the 
Final Advent. This examination is possible and 
the problem soluble independently of the question, 
to be discussed later, of the existence or non-existence 
of the Kingdom of God in a two-fold phase, earthly 
and heavenly. It is possible to prove, directly from the 
texts, that the title of Messiah was given to the 
Saviour and that He applied it to Himself during His 
earthly Hfe: this fact established, we can thence con- 
clude that, if the realization of the Messianic King- 
dom did not begin even before its final phase, at least 
there is no essential connection between the reality of 
the Messianic character and the actual inauguration of 
the Kingdom. 

Opinion of the Early Church.— And first of all, 
how was this matter viewed in the thought of the early 
Church, in the minds of the Apostles who were formed 
by the very teachings of the Saviour? Loisy inter- 
prets it in the sense of his own theory which is the 
same as that of J. Weiss and that held in a more 
radical sense by Wrede. " We easily understand," 
says Loisy, " that the Apostolic Church should have 
taught that Jesus became Christ and Lord by His 
resurrection, that is, by His entrance into heavenly 
glory, and that, at the same time, it should have 
awaited His coming, that is. His advent as Christ 
and not His return, since His earthly ministry was 
not as yet viewed as a Messianic advent. ... As 
far as we can judge from the testimonies which 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 177 

came more or less under the influence of the Pauline 
theology, it was only the resurrection which made 
Him the Christ and placed Him upon His throne of 
glory; death was only the providential condition of 
the resurrection, a condition willed by God and ac- 
cepted by Jesus. . . . But if Jesus was proclaimed 
Christ and Lord by the first disciples, it was owing, 
not to His death, but to the resurrection which intro- 
duced Him into the glory of His Messianic vocation." ^ 

Thus we have two facts : Firstly, the Saviour's com- 
ing at the end of time is not His Return, but simply 
His Coming or His Advent, as though it were His first 
appearance in the role of Christ, His Messianic advent 
properly speaking. And secondly: The Saviour be- 
came Christ and Lord by His resurrection. 

True, the Church of the Apostolic age speaks of 
the Coming of the Lord Jesus and not precisely of 
His Return: Christ is to come, the day of His Ad- 
vent is near. "Behold, / come," He says in the 
Apocalypse, and S. John becomes the echo of the 
Spirit and of the Spouse that he may exclaim : '* Come, 
Lord JesLis." It is also remarkable that the expres- 
sion is employed even in circumstances where the term 
" return " would seem very suitable. Thus, to the 
disciples who witnessed the Saviour's ascension, the 
Angel did not say : "He shall come again," as if He had 
gone away ; but, " He shall come." So, too, the 
Apostles asked the Master when viewing the Temple, 
the ruin of which He had just foretold; "What sign 
wilt Thou give us of Thy coming?" And Jesus an- 
nounced, not His return, but His coming at the end 
of time in the clouds of heaven and in the glory of 
His Father.^ 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 104, 127, 130-131. 

2 Ac. i. 11; I Cor. iv. 5; xi. 26; i Thes. v. 2; Heb. x. 37; 
Apoc. i. 7, 8; ii. 25; iii. 3; iv. 8; i Cor. i. 8; xv. 23; 2 Cor. 
vii. 7; I Thes. ii. 19; iii. 13; iv. 14; v. 23 ; 2 Thes. ii. i, 8, 9; 
I Tim. vi. 14; 2 Tim. iv. i, 8; Titus ii. 3; James v. 7, 8; 2 Pet. 

12 



178 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Such a mode of speech evidently supposes that at- 
tention was drawn less to the return of the person in 
question than to the special character of His return, 
namely, the advent of a new order of things, the 
signal for the final judgment, the announcement of 
the final establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. 
The idea that Jesus shall personally return is kept in 
the background, and what especially commands atten- 
tion is the thought of His coming as Sovereign Judge 
and glorious chief of the Kingdom. 

The coming of the Day of the Lord, the terrible Day 
of Judgment, the arrival of the Kingdom is often men- 
tioned. Thus is emphasized the glorious character of 
this Advent which shall be not so much His return as 
His triumphant coming in the clouds of heaven and 
in all the splendor of divine glory. Interest lies not 
so much in the fact that the Saviour has left the 
earth and is to return, but rather that He is now 
hidden in the bosom of the Father and is one day to 
appear again, to manifest His glory, and to come for 
the great revelation. This solemn manifestation, 
which shall inaugurate the judgment and the reign of 
God in glory, may rightly be viewed as the great 
revelation of Jesus as Christ the Lord.^ 

Does this mean that Jesus shall merit this title of 
Messiah only at that time? That this advent shall be 
not only His final manifestation but His very first 

iii. 4, 12 ; I Jo. ii. 28 ; J ude i. 24 ; cf. Mt. xxiv. 3, 39 ; Apoc. iii. 
II ; xvi. 15; xxii. 7, 12, 20; Ac. i. 11 ; Mt. xxiv. 3; x. 23; xi. 3; 
xvi. 27, 28; xxiv. 30, 39, 44; XXV. 31 ; xxvi. 64; Mt. viii. 38, 39; 
xiii. 26; xiv. 62; Lk. vii. 19; ix. 26; xii. 40; xviii. 8; xxi. 27; 
xxii. 18; Jo. XX. 29. 

1 Ac. ii. 20; I Thess. i. 10; v. 2; 2 Pet. iii. 10; Apoc. ii. 18; 
cf. Mt. iii. 7; Lk. iii. 7; Mk. viii. 39; Lk. xvii. 20; xxii. 18; 
2 Thess. ii. 8; Titus ii. 13; Apoc. i. 7; cf. Mt. xvi. 27, 28; 
xxiv. 30; XXV. 31; xxvi. 64; Mk. viii. 38; xiii. 26; xiv. 62; 
Lk. ix. 26; xxi. 27; I Cor. i. 7; Col. iii. 4; 2 Thess. i. 7; Heb. 
ix. 28; I Pet. i. 13; iv. 13; v. 4; I Jo. ii. 28; iii. 2; cf. Lk. 
xvii. 30. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 179 

consecration as the Messiah? That only then He 
shall begin to be the Messiah in the proper sense 
of the word? We do not believe so. A careful ex- 
amination of the texts shows a connection between 
the idea of the " final Advent " and the idea of the 
glorious apparition, of the terrible manifestation, of 
the revelation of the Kingdom. We cannot discern a 
clearly marked connection between the idea of the 
" final Advent " and that of the first Messianic con- 
secration. Jesus shall appear, shall manifest His 
glory as Christ the Lord. It does not follow appar- 
ently that He had not been previously Christ the Lord 
hidden either in His Father's bosom or even on earth 
in the weakness of human nature. The last day will 
be His "Advent " as the glorious Messiah ; for He 
shall " come " to establish His Kingdom in its final 
phase. Everything connected with His first coming 
shows that He was, during His mortal life, the Messiah 
sufifering and laboring to prepare for the eternal King- 
dom ; as will be seen from a study of several texts. 

Is not Loisy's inference from the original testi- 
monies of the apostolic Church rather at odds with 
that testimony upon which he claims to base his 
theory, namely, that Jesus " would become Christ and 
Lord by His resurrection?" If He did so, it was be- 
cause His character as Christ long preceded the es- 
tablishment of the heavenly Kingdom which was to 
begin only by His coming at the end of time. As 
noted before, this final Advent was to especially in- 
dicate the Saviour's great manifestation as the glori- 
ous Messiah and not exactly the mere beginning of 
his Messiahship. But, let us see in what sense the 
Apostolic Church taught that Jesus became Christ and 
Lord by His resurrection. One single text serves as 
the basis of this assertion : " Therefore let all the 
House of Israel know most certainly that God hath 
made both Lord and Christ this same Jesus whom you 
have crucified." ^ 

1 Act ii. 36. 



l8o CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

The context shows the exact meaning of this state- 
ment. The Prince of the Apostles, relying upon the 
striking manifestation which had just signalized the 
departure from the Cenacle, took advantage of the 
Jews' deep emotion in order to procure their conver- 
sion. Jesus is the Christ : He proved it by His resur- 
rection and by sending the Holy Spirit which they had 
just witnessed. Christ was truly to rise again : this is 
announced by David in the sixteenth Psalm. Appar- 
ently the Psalmist speaks of himself ; but, as S. Peter 
observes, since in reality he still remains a prey to 
death, it is clear that he speaks in the name of Christ 
who is, moreover, plainly denoted by the term, " the 
Holy One " of God : " Thou wilt not leave my soul in 
hell, nor suffer the Holy One to see corruption." ^ 

Now Jesus is surely risen : '* This Jesus hath God 
raised again : whereof we are all witnesses." Therefore 
He is truly the Christ. Moreover, is not this fact also 
shown by the miracles wrought by Him during His 
life, miracles that were to accredit Him among the 
people, as a man approved by God? And finally, con- 
tinues S. Peter, you yourselves are witnesses of the 
wonders attesting an unusual out-pouring of God's 
Spirit. In fact, Jesus had promised this: He was to 
demand it from His Father : and now. He had realized 
the promise : then, the Father has granted His prayer. 
He fully shares in the power of God and is really 
seated at His right hand, as David had said of Christ 
his Lord. Apart, then, from His miracles, both the 
fact of the resurrection and of the descent of the Holy 
Spirit prove that Jesus of Nazareth is truly the 
Messiah-Lord foretold by the prophet.^ 

Thus does S. Peter argue ; and, after a survey of all 
the consequences of his reasoning, we seem to reach 
one conclusion : the expression " He has been made by 
God, Lord and Christ " must not be understood as 

^ Ps. xvi. 10 in Septuagint ; cf. Ac. ii. 27. 
2Ac. ii. 22, 32 ; Ps. ex. i ; Ac. ii. 34. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY i8i 

meaning strictly that Jesus had become by His resur- 
rection Lord and Christ for the first time. The 
Apostle fearlessly points to Jesus' resurrection and 
glorious share in His Father's power, not exactly as 
being the primary basis and only reason for His 
Messiahship, but as marks of His Messianic dignity 
and demonstrations of His character as Christ. The 
resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Ghost prove 
that Jesus now possesses that power and glory re- 
served to Him as the Christ; but there is nothing to 
expressly show that He first became the Christ only 
by His resurrection and participation in the divine 
glory. S. Peter may Hkely mean that Jesus' entrance 
into glory is merely a sign that God had made Him 
Lord and Christ, or, again, that by His resurrection 
He had truly become Christ, as the Christ-Lord, in the 
final enjoyment of His glory, after experiencing the 
infirmity of His mortal condition. Similarly, S. Paul 
who clearly teaches that Jesus' divine Sonship was 
anterior to His human birth, nevertheless assigns to 
the resurrection the real manifestation, the striking 
and solemn revelation of Jesus as the Son of God.^ 

Moreover, this rather difficult text of Acts ii. 36 
should evidently be viewed in the light of the language 
usual throughout the other texts. And the fact is that, 
in this same ApostoHc Church, Jesus is believed to be 
the Christ from the very moment of His incarnation. 

In many portions of his discourse at Pentecost, S. 
Peter really seems to consider the Saviour as the Christ 
even during His earthly life. This very ''' man ap- 
proved of God by miracles and wonders and signs 
which God did by him," — was He not, even whilst liv- 
ing on earth the true Christ? Why does S. Peter 
speak of the death of the " Holy One " of God, and 
of the resurrection of " Christ " unless it is because 
Jesus was already the Holy One of God and the Christ 
before His death and resurrection ? ^ 

1 Ac. V. 31 ; X. s6, 42; xi. 20; Rom. i. 4. 

2 Ac. ii. 22; xxvii. 31. 



l82 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

At Caesarea, S. Peter speaks of Jesus as being the 
Anointed of the Lord even from the beginning of His 
ministry and as being endowed with His Spirit and 
power in order to spread broadcast His miracles and 
blessings. The faithful, too, in noting the ignominies 
inflicted upon Jesus in the various stages of His Pas- 
sion, recall how the Jewish and Roman authorities 
along with the populace revolt against the Anointed of 
the Lord, thus arraying themselves, as David had said, 
against God and against His Christ.^ 

Moreover, when Jesus' sufferings and death are re- 
ferred to. He is commonly called Christ as though it 
were truly in His character as Christ that He endured 
His Passion. Thus we read : " Christ died for our 
sins, according to the Scriptures " ; and again : " Christ 
also hath loved us and hath delivered Himself for us, 
an oblation and a sacrifice." ^ 

During the Apostolic age, as we can see, one of the 
chief aims of Apologetics was to show that, by His 
Passion, Jesus had but realized what the Scriptures 
predict of Christ, the suffering Redeemer. Christ 
occupies all Scripture. It is Christ that Isaiah repre- 
sents as the redeeming victim for sin. That the divine 
prophecies should be fulfilled, it was necessary that 
Christ should suffer. Apparently, therefore, it was 
as Christ that Jesus was to suffer and die, just as it 
was as Christ that He arose from the dead.^ 

We also find the name of Christ associated with the 
very idea of Jesus' first appearance in the flesh : 
" Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners," 

1 Ac. X. 27 ; cf. Mt. iii. 16 ; Is. Ixi. i ; Ac. iv. 26, 27 ; Ps. ii. 
1-2. 

2 I Cor. XV. 3 ; Eph. v. 2 ; cf. Rom. vii. 4 ; viii. 32 ; x. 7 ; 
xiv. 15; I Cor. ii. 2, 8; v. 7; x. 16; xv. 3; 2 Cor. v. 15; xvi. 19; 
Gal. i. 19; vi. 14; Col. i. 24; i Tim. ii. 5, 6; vi. 13; i Pet. 
i. II, 19; ii, 21; iii. 18; i Jo. v. 6. 

3 Ac. iii. 18 ; viii. z^-Z7 \ xvii. 2-z ; i Cor, xv. 3 ; cf. Lk. 
xxiv. 26. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 183 

says S. Paul ; and S. John says : " Every spirit which 
confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of 
God." Is not this to say that Jesus was Christ from 
His entrance into the world and that He came here be- 
low precisely as Christ, the Son of God and Saviour 
of men/ 

Naught, then, after a careful study of the texts 
seems to authorize the assertion that, according to 
the teaching of the Apostolic Church, Jesus had, prop- 
erly speaking, become Christ and Lord by His resur- 
rection.^ 

The Testimony of Jesus' Contemporaries. — Let 
us now ascertain what have been, on this very point, 
the teaching of Jesus Himself and the ideas of those 
who lived with Him. Loisy thinks that Jesus' reserve 
about calling Himself the Messiah is very peculiar, and 
that the key to the solution of this problem is to be 
found in the theory that He was not to become the 
Messiah until the end of time. " We easily see why 
He wanted to avow His Messianic character only at 
the day of His death," he says, " and we see in what 
sense He admitted it. He had no reason to proclaim 
it before, not only because He would have met with 
incredulity or would have exposed Himself to the 
vengeance of the public authorities, but precisely be- 
cause He could not do so, since preaching was not 
the Messiah's function and since His coming as the 
Christ was only to be realized afterwards, at the 
moment determined by divine Providence. . . . With 
regard to Jesus' reserve about His Messiahship, we 
must remember that the idea of the Messiah, as also 
that of the Kingdom of Heaven, had an eschatological 
character. The Messiah is not the Preacher but the 
Chief of the Kingdom. It pertains to Him to rule 

1 I Tim. i. 15; I Jo. iv. 2; 2 Jo. vii. ; cf. Lk. ii. 11, 26; Mt. 
ii. 24; Rom. viii. 3, 32; Gal. iv. 4-6; i Jo. iv. 9, 10, 14; v, 20. 

2 Lagrange, art, : Rev, Bib., 1903, p. 302, 



i84 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the Elect. As long as the Kingdom had not come, 
Jesus might indeed prepare for its Advent but He 
could not be the Messiah, and we easily understand 
why He did not claim to be such, since He was des- 
tined to be Messiah in the future only. We can, how- 
ever, understand how His disciples had discovered the 
secret and how He had aided them in doing so ; why, 
during His final effort to convert Jerusalem, He had 
acted and spoken more freely than in Galilee because 
He beheld the near consummation of His destiny; 
why, to Caiaphas, who had asked Him if indeed He 
were the Son of God, He had replied : ' I am ; and you 
shall see the Son of Man coming at the right hand of 
the power of God ! ' This answer gives the explana- 
tion : it amounts to saying that Jesus is the Messiah 
because He is soon to sit at God's right hand and to 
rule the Kingdom of Heaven." ^ 

So that, in Loisy's opinion, Jesus refrained from 
calling Himself the Messiah because, in His own esti- 
mation. He was not as yet the Messiah and would be- 
come so only in course of time. But, in studying the 
manner in which the Saviour had manifested His Mes- 
siahship we have found other reasons for His reserve 
and these are based upon facts. Loisy's suggestion is 
apparently hard to reconcile on the one hand with the 
character of the Messianic manifestations which refer 
to Jesus during His earthly life, and on the other hand 
with the attitude and the most authentic declarations 
of the Saviour Himself. If, indeed, we study the 
Messianic manifestations during Jesus' earthly life, 
we will see that always and everywhere He is pro- 
claimed to be actually and for the time being, as well 
as personally and officially, the Messiah; and that no 
suggestion is ever made that He shall become such 
only at the end of time. 

Along the banks of the Jordan, on the Mount of 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 102-103; Rev. 
d'Hist., etc., 1903, pp. 296, 301. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 185 

Transfiguration, God the Father proclaims Jesus as 
His Son, as His chosen Messiah, as the object of all 
His love. He does not merely say that Jesus will be 
His beloved Son, but declares that He is such. And 
the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Jesus at the Bap- 
tism, as also His glorious transfiguration between 
Moses and Elias, seem to fully manifest Him as being, 
here and now, the predestined Messiah, whom God 
has anointed and especially loves. Nor, again, in the 
testimony of the demoniacs to His Messiahship, is 
there aught to show that the evil spirits wish merely 
to call Him the future Messiah, the One Chosen to be 
the Messiah at a distant day. In fact, they say that 
He is now living, and they call Him the " Holy One 
of God," "the Son of the Most High God"; and 
when the Evangelist explains the Saviour's prohibition 
of revealing it, his very reason is that they knew Him, 
and knew Him as being the Christ." ^ 

S. John the Baptist, while imprisoned, asked Jesus 
through his disciples as spokesmen: "Art thou he that 
is to come, or look we for another?" Loisy thinks 
that this question is easily understood if only we sup- 
pose that Jesus was to be the Messiah simpl}^ at the 
time of His final advent. He also says that " John 
the Baptist did not say: 'Art thou the Christ,' be- 
cause the Kingdom was not realized nor was Jesus 
acting in his role of Messiah. He asked rather if 
Jesus was not to become the Christ. Need we, how- 
ever, have recourse to this hypothesis in order to find 
an intelligible meaning in the question put by the Pre- 
cursor? It would appear not. Let us study the 
passage in the light of its context.^ 

While confined in the prison of Machaerus, John 
learns of the miracles wrought by Jesus, the renown 

1 Mk. i. 24 ; Lk. iv; 34, 41 ; cf. Mk. v. 7 ; Mt. viii. 29 ; Lk. 
viii. 28; Mk. i. 34; Lk. iv. 41. 

2 Mt. xi. 3; Lk. vii, 19; Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, 
p. 102, 



i86 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

of which accredited Him everywhere as a great prophet 
whom God had given to His people. He sends two of 
His disciples to ask Jesus if He is the One who is to 
come. Perhaps, by this message, he wants to af- 
ford the Master a chance to make a decisive manifes- 
tation before these messengers whom he thus sought 
to strengthen in the faith: In fact, the Saviour per- 
forms divers miracles right under the eyes of these 
messengers in support of the answer which He gives 
them. Possibly also, John wants a decisive proof for 
himself. True it is that his faith was already ancient: 
on the banks of the Jordan river, after declaring he 
was not personally the Christ, he had announced that 
this Christ was to come after him and that he was 
already present in the midst of the multitude; at the 
Baptism he had recognized Him and had witnessed 
the heavenly manifestation; and to his own disciples 
he had spoken of Jesus in terms that equivalently de- 
signated Him as the Messiah. But, perhaps, he is 
surprised at the delay in the advent of the great Mes- 
sianic manifestation, of " that baptism in the Holy 
Spirit and fire " which he had announced as being 
the special work of Christ; and, what surely shows 
the substantial firmness of his faith, he feels that he 
can do naught better than to speak to Jesus directly in 
order to have his belief fully and finally confirmed.^ 

We do not see, therefore, how we can admit the fol- 
lowing assertion of Loisy : " The captive John did not 
know even then that Jesus was the Messiah ; he was 
beginning merely to suspect it, and the Synoptics do 
not state that Jesus' reply had led him to believe it. 
We may doubt that he did so, since his followers did 
not rally to the cause of the Gospel." 

The only ground for such an interpretation is the 

1 Lk. vii. i6, i8; Mt. xi. 2; Lk. vii. 21; iii. 15; Jo. i. 20; 
Mk. i. 7; Mt. iii. 11; Lk. iii. 16; Jo. i. 26, 27; Mt. iii. 14; 
Jo. i. 33, 34; i. 36; iii. 28; Mk. i. 8; Mt. iii. 11, 12; Lk. iii. 16, 
17; Jo. i. Z3' 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 187 

episode which we are discussing and which may be 
explained quite otherwise. Against it is the positive 
fact that the three Synoptics, not to mention the Fourth 
Gospel, show that, even prior to the Saviour's baptism, 
John the Baptist was aware of the Messiah's near 
arrival. On the other hand, the Synoptic accounts 
leave the impression that the Precursor recognized 
Jesus as Messiah at the baptism, and this is expressly 
attested by S. Matthew as by S. John. And Jesus' 
magnificent eulogy of His Precursor, delivered after 
the incident in question, would not be intelligible if 
the Saviour could have perceived in the Baptist's ques- 
tion a formal doubt, which would not have, even 
later on, ended in belief. These testimonies are clear 
and accordant ; they surely are a part of the early 
tradition. What right, then, have we to reject them 
just for the sake of a doubtful passage, instead of 
interpreting this doubtful passage in agreement with 
the primitive testimonies, and in a way, moreover, 
of which it is perfectly susceptible ? ^ 

At all events, the Baptist's query : "Art thou He 
that is to come?", seems to be but a traditional expres- 
sion serving to designate the Messiah: The Messiah 
is '' He that is expected," He who is to come, or, more 
literally. He who cometh in fulfilment of the divine 
promises and according to general expectation. The 
usual representation of Christ's coming at the last day 
does not prove that the term of itself may not be purely 
and simply synonymous with " Messiah," or that the 
person holding such eschatological position may not 
rightly be called Messiah before that final manifesta- 
tion, if God has already anointed Him for this purpose 
and He performs works that are also Messianic.^ 

Let us even suppose the Precursor used this expres- 

1 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. ZZZ) Bruce, art.: Jesus, E. B., 
par. 27, col. 2450. 

2C/. Jo. vi. 14; xi, 27. 



l88 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

sion to signify the final Messianic Advent: there is 
nothing to prove that, once fully assured that Jesus 
was to be the Messiah at the end of time, John does 
not consider Him to be the Messiah even now; so 
that his question, instead of being interpreted " Art 
thou he who is to be the Christ ? " would more natur- 
ally read : " Art thou not at present the Christ ? " — 
this Christ whom we await as the Saviour, who at the 
end of days is to preside over the general judgment 
and estabhsh the reign of God? And, as we shall see 
later, the Saviour's reply confirms our interpretation. 

The Apostles, also, like John the Baptist, call Jesus 
the Messiah, and they apparently see in Him not only 
the Messiah in expectation but the Messiah already 
present and essentially realized. Loisy, indeed, is 
not of this opinion. He thinks that " when Peter 
says : ' Thou art the Christ,' he does not mean that 
the Saviour is already exercising the Messianic func- 
tion, but that He is the person appointed for this 
office." This view, again, seems irreconcilable with 
the texts.^ 

Jesus did not ask His disciples : " Whom do men 
say that I shall be ?" — What do they think shall be the 
Son of Man's destiny ? but exactly : " Whom do men 
say that I am?" — What do they think of my present 
character, of my real personality? The Apostles in 
fact tell Him about the various opinions of the people 
about Him, as also the current ideas about His 
person and exact identity. Some take Him for a 
prophet, others for one of the old prophets returned 
to life, others again for Elias, the Precursor. And 
again, the Saviour asks the same question : " But you, 
whom do you say that I am ?" Peter answers plainly : 
" Thou art the Christ " ; thus proclaiming that he 
sees in Him, even at the present moment, Christ's 
person realized. He does not say : " Thou shalt be 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 102-103. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 189 

the Christ," nor " Thou art He who is to be the 
Christ." Naught suggests that such is his underlying 
thought ; but all seems to show that, although the mul- 
titude then saw in Jesus an ordinary prophet actually 
exercising His office and at most the precursor of the 
Messiah, he himself perceives in His very actual func- 
tion and in His present activity the person of the 
Messiah/ 

A study of the Gospel of S. John, moreover, serves 
to fully confirm our interpretation. In the Fourth 
Gospel, no more than in the Synoptics, do we find the 
Apostles or the Disciples expressing the idea that Jesus 
is destined to become the Christ only at a future day. 
Every time that they bear witness to the Saviour's 
Messiahship they clearly indicate that, as far as they 
can see. He is already the Messiah both in person and 
in function. 

Thus, at their first meeting with the Master, Andrew 
says to his brother Simon : *' We have found the Mes- 
siah." And on the morrow, Philip tells Nathanael: 
** We have found him of whom Moses in the Law, and 
the Prophets did write : Jesus of Nazareth, the son of 
Joseph." But when Nathanael hears Jesus revealing 
to him secrets of his past life, he perceives in this 
fact a sign that Philip's testimony is true ; so that he 
exclaims : " Rabbi, thou art the Son of God ; thou art 
the King of Israel." ^ 

The Samaritan woman, also, after the Master re- 
veals to her all things that she ever did, hastens into 
the city and says to the people : " Come and see a man 
who has told me all things whatsoever I have done: 
Is he not the Christ?" And the people of the same 
city, after hearing Jesus discourse to them for two 
days, tell the same woman : "We ourselves have heard 

^ Mk. viii. 27; Mt, xvi. 13; Lk. ix. 18; Mk. viii. 29; Mt. 
xvi. 15; Lk. ix. 20; Mk. viii. 29; Mt. xvi. 16. 
2 Jo. i. 41, 45, 49. 



1^0 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Him, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the 
world." Similar language is uttered by S. Peter at the 
close of Jesus' discourse on the Bread of Life: We 
have believed and have known that thou art the Christ, 
the Son of God." ^ 

Of especial significance, too, is the profession of 
faith made by Martha : " I believe that thou art the 
Christ, the Son of God, come into the world." To 
her, the two titles, " Christ " and ^' Son of God," are 
inseparably connected, and the addition, " come into 
the world," qualifies each of the two antecedents. 
Now, from the entire context, it is quite apparent 
that the expression, " come into the world," should 
be taken in this place not for the final coming at the 
end of time, but for the first advent which was ac- 
complished through the Incarnation. Jesus comes 
into this world as the Son of God who sets forth 
from the bosom of His Father, and also as the Christ, 
or Anointed, of God for the fulfilment of Messianic 
designs. On entering the world He was the Son of 
God: He was also the Messiah.^ 

The remarks of the multitude, finally, also prove 
that if they thought the supreme Messianic mission 
was to be the estabHshment of the ideal Kingdom of 
David, they nevertheless discerned in Jesus' teachings 
and miracles a strictly Messianic function which 
warranted Him in employing the title of Messiah. 
After the miracle of the loaves the people exclaim: 
" This is, of a truth, the Prophet that is to come into 
the world." In all the various views about Him 
there is question only of His present character as 
Christ : " Have the rulers known, for a truth, that 
this is the Christ ?" Again, many wonder : '' When 
the Christ cometh shall He do more miracles than 
this man doth ?". Some say : " This is the prophet 

ijo. iv. 29, 42; vi. 70. 

2 Jo. xi, 27 ; cf. I Jo. iv. 2 ; 2 Jo. vii. ; i Tim. i. 15. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 191 

indeed " ; others say : " This is the Christ. ... If thou 
be the Christ, tell us plainly." ^ 

And when Caiaphas questions Jesus, let Loisy say 
what he will, he does not at all suggest that he wants 
to allude to a mere claim to be the one '' who is to 
be the Messiah." The question is very plainly stated 
in the three Synoptics: ''Art thou the Christ, the Son 
of the Blessed God? ... I adjure thee by the liv- 
ing God that thou tell us if thou he the Christ, the 
Son of God. ... If thou he the Christ, tell us. . . . 
Art thou, then, the Son of God?". Pilate, also, sim- 
ply asked Him: ''Art thou the King of the Jews?" 
No allusion is made to His future destiny: the ques- 
tion bears entirely upon what He claims to be at the 
present time.^ 

The Saviour's Statements.— But, let us consider 
the Saviour's own declarations : throughout His 
earthly life and in His apostolic ministry He is al- 
ways the Messiah, according to His own assertions. 
Take, for instance, the Fourth Gospel : it shows that, 
in the various circumstances in which He avowed 
His Messiahship, He proclaims Himself, not Him 
who was to be the Messiah, who was to come later as 
the Messiah, but indeed the Messiah at hand, the 
Messiah who was to come and is actually come. The 
Samaritan woman speaks to Him about the future 
coming of the promised Messiah : " I know that the 
Messiah cometh," she says, " who is called the Christ ; 
therefore, when He is come, He will tell us all things." 
And Jesus replies : that He is, indeed, the expected 
Messiah, the Christ who shall come : " I am He," 
says He, " who am speaking with thee." So too. He 
asks the man born blind : " Dost thou believe in the 

1 Jo. vi. 14; vii. 26, 31, 41 ; Jo. x. 24. 

2 Mk. xiv. 61 ; Mt. xxvi. 63 ; Lk. xxii. 67, 70 ; Mk. xv. 2 ; 
Mt. xxvii. 11; Lk. xxiii. 3; Jo. xviii. ZZ^ 2>7-\ Lagrange, Rev. 
Bib., 1903, p. 308. 



192 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Son of God ?" And the man replies : *' Who is He, 
Lord, that I may beheve in Him?" Jesus answers: 
'* Thou hast both seen Him and it is He that talketh 
with thee." Again, when the people entreat Him to 
tell openly if He be the Christ, the Saviour lets it be 
understood that such declaration has long since been 
given through His works which declare Him the Son 
of God and His Messiah : '' I speak to you, and you 
believe not: the works that I do in the name of my 
Father, they give testimony of me." ^ 

If, moreover, we consult the Synoptic gospels, we 
will find the Saviour employing the like language. To 
John the Baptist, who asks Him if He is " He that is 
to come," Jesus replies in terms that seem to fully 
designate Him as being thenceforth the Messiah ex- 
pected. Loisy, indeed, tries to square this answer with 
his theory. He claims that Jesus' reply is such as " to 
make him understand that He who really prepares the 
Kingdom is He who is to come with the Kingdom." 
The deeds which Jesus describes are not strictly His 
Messianic work which is wholly withheld until the 
final advent ; they are but a preparation to that unique 
Messianic work, and merely designate Jesus as Him 
who is one day hence to be the Messiah.^ 

Let us closely examine the data. Supposing that 
John's query could mean: Art thou He who shalt 
come for the final judgment, then, in appeahng to 
His miracles, the Saviour would mean that He was 
indeed the Messiah expected at he end of time; but 
He says naught to indicate that, if He is to be such 
a Messiah later on. He was not already, in another 
though real condition, personally exercising His Mes- 
siahship and that His present ministry which prepared 
for the definite establishment of the Kingdom, was 
not, at the same time, a Messianic function. We" 

1 Jo. iv. 25, 26 ; ix. 35-37 ; x. 24, 25. 

2 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 103. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 193 

may even say that, in this case, the Saviour's reply, 
so remarkable because He is content to appeal 
to His works in order to strengthen the faith of 
the messengers, is true only if there is an essential 
relation between Him " who is to come " and the one 
who wrought the wonders described by Jesus. And 
such essential relation can be only that common and 
identical quality, the Messiahship; for, His present 
miracles are Messianic works as much as is the 
supreme manifestation, and in the exercise of His min- 
istry Jesus is already " the Messiah," and hence He is 
" He who is to come." 

If, however, as seems probable, we must see in the 
Baptist's expression ''Art thou He who is to come," 
merely the current term for designating the expected 
Messiah, whether He comes at once into this world 
with the final Kingdom, or whether He has other 
works to perform before that supreme manifestation; 
if He, on the other hand, as seems true, models His 
reply upon the oracles wherein tradition saw por- 
trayed the special works of the Messianic era, there 
is but one plain conclusion: John the Baptist had 
asked Jesus if He were the Messiah whom people ex- 
pected, and Jesus answers, in equivalent terms, that 
He is indeed the Messiah since He performs the 
works and the functions of the Messiah, although not 
as yet the final work nor the supreme function.^ 

We may next consider the Confession of St. Peter, 
He declares that Jesus is the Christ ; and the Saviour 
approves and confirms his avowal in such wise that 
He leads nobody to suppose that He will merit this 
title only at the end of time. Nor, in telling His 
apostles to keep silent, is there aught to show that 
such silence relates to His future Messiahship. In- 
deed, everything shows that it refers to His present 
quality of Messiah : " He commanded His disciples 

1 Mt. xi. 5 ; Lk. vii. 22 ; cf. Is. xxx. 5 ; Ixi. I. 
13 



194 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

that they should tell no one that He was Jesus, the 
Christ." ^ 

Again, there is Jesus' answer to the High-Priest. 
Loisy, by the way, thinks that he has some support 
for his theory in that reply. *' The discourse that 
Jesus addressed to him," he says, " is really intelli- 
gible only in that hypothesis. The Saviour avows 
that He is the Christ ; but, to explain His answer. He 
also adds : ' You shall see the Son of Man sitting at 
the right hand of the Power,' that is, of God, ' and 
coming upon the clouds of heaven.' It is precisely 
this place of honor and this coming upon the clouds 
that characterize the Messiah. Jesus declares Him- 
self to be the Son of Man who is to come. We can 
easily understand why He wished to avow His charac- 
ter only on the day of His death, and we see in what 
sense He avowed it." ^ 

Is Loisy's interpretation really correct? We do not 
think so. Aside from his hypothesis, the Saviour's 
response remains, we believe, perfectly intelligible, 
let us say, more inteUigible. It is at least certain that 
Jesus was asked, not if He said He was to be the 
Messiah, but if He is now the Christ. Jesus answers in 
the affirmative, and it would seem exactly in the same 
sense: ''Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed 
God?" ... "I am" ... "I adjure thee, by the 
name of the living God, to tell us if thou art the 
Christ, the Son of God?" . . . "Thou hast said it" 
. . . *'Art thou, then, the Son of God?" . . . "You 
say yourselves that I am." And Jesus adds : " You 
shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of 
the power of God, and coming upon the clouds of 
heaven." ^ 

1 Mt. xvi. 20. 

2 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 103. 

3 Mk. xiv. 61, 62; Mt. xvi. 6^, 64; Lk. xxii. 67, 70; Mk. 
xiv. 62) Mt. xxvi. 64; Lk. xxii. 69. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 195 

There is no sign of any restriction made in order 
to narrow the sense of the first response by estab- 
Hshing an essential, even exclusive relation between 
His quality of Christ and His coming at the end of 
time. Why should not this declaration be absolutely 
independent of the response already made, and which 
fully retains its own meaning? Could not the Saviour 
wish rather to enforce His avowal by expressly 
claiming for Himself, in face of his death, the glorious 
destiny reserved to the Son of Man. Could He 
not wish simply to set before the conscience of His 
judges the perspective of that supreme judgment 
which one day He would personally administer in all 
the formidable array of His glory? Whatever be 
said, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that seems 
to indicate His desire to restrict His title and His 
quality of Messiah solely to the final advent. 

Before Pilate, also, Jesus uses the like language. 
The Procurator asks: "Art thou the King of the 
Jews?", that is, the Messiah-King. The Saviour re- 
plies : " Thou hast said it." And if, as the Fourth 
Gospel states. He adds : " My Kingdom is not of this 
world," He did not mean that this royalty, and hence 
this Messiahship, would be realized only at a future 
epoch. He simply meant that His royalty is not of 
the temporal order, like the kingdoms of this world, 
otherwise He would have defended Himself against 
those who had raised their hands at Him. He also 
implied that He came here below, already clothed in 
His royalty, but a wholly spiritual one, since His mis- 
sion was to reign over souls by leading them to the 
truth : " Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was 
I born, and for this I came into the world: that I 
should give testimony to the truth." ^ 

We may refer, finally, to the Saviour's constant 

1 Lk. xxiii. 2; Mk. xv. 2; Mt. xxvii. ii; Lk. xxiii. 3; Jo. 
xviii. S7; Jo. xviii. 3^-37- 



196 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

use of the " Son of Man " as a title, which fact, we 
think, leads to the same conclusion. It is a Messianic 
title : the " Son of Man," — this is the Messiah who 
would come at the end of time to establish the King- 
dom as foretold in the vision of Daniel. Remarkably 
enough, Jesus employs this title even in the present 
exercise of His ministry. He does not call Himself 
the " Son of Man " merely for the final revelation. 
No; He is such even in His work of evangeUzation 
and redemption. It is the " Son of Man " who has 
power on earth to remit sins, and who is absolute 
master of the Sabbath. It is the '' Son of Man " 
who plants in souls the good seed of the Kingdom of 
God. It is the Son of Man who is come, not to de- 
stroy, but to save ; not to be ministered to, but to min- 
ister and to give His life in ransom for many. To 
fulfil His mission, the Son of God leads a wandering 
life and condemns Himself to the absolute penury of 
a missionary : he has no place where to lay His head. 
When foretelling His Passion, the Saviour declares 
that it is necessary that the *' Son of Man " should 
suffer much, as it is written of Him; that He should 
be rebuked by the Ancients of the people, the High 
Priests, and the Scribes, and that He should be put 
to death and rise again the third day.^ 

In thus employing, from the beginning to the end 
of His earthly life, a title properly Messianic, as He 

1 Mk. xviii. 38 ; Mt. xvi. 27, 28 ; Lk. ix. 26 ; Mk. xiii. 26 ; 
Mt. xxiv. 30; Lk. xxi. 27; Mk. xiv. 62; Mt. xxvi. 64; Lk. 
xxii. 69; Mt. X. 23; xiii. 14; ix. 27; xxiv. 37, 39, 44; xxv. 31; 
Lk. xii, 8, 40; xvii. 22, 24, 26; xviii. 8; xxi. s^; Mt. xi. 19; 
Lk. vii. 34; Mt. xii. 32; Lk. xii. 10; Mt. xvi. 13; Lk. xi. 30; 
xxii. 48; Mk. ii. 10; Mt. ix. 6; Lk. vi. 24; Mk. ii. 28; Mt. xii. 
8; Lk. vi. 5; Mt. xiii. 37 \ Mk. x. 45; Mt. xx. 28; xviii. 11; 
Lk. ix. 56; xiv. 10; Mt. viii. 20; Lk. ix. 58; Mk. viii. -31 ; Lk. 
ix. 22; Mk. ix. 8, 11; Mt. xvii. 9, 12; Mk. ix, 30; Mt. xvii. 21; 
Lk. ix. 44; Mk. X. 33; Mt. xx. 18; Lk.^ xviii. 31; _Mk. xiv. 
21, 41; Mt. xxvi. 24, 25; Mt. xii. 40; xxvi. 2; Lk. xxiv. 7, 26; 
Jo. iii. 14; viii. 28; xii. 34. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



197 



was to prove it later, did not Jesus equivalently 
indicate that, even at present, He was the Mes- 
siah. No doubt, the title would be realized in a special 
and fuller sense at the final advent ; but, that He might 
rightly and constantly use it during life ; that He might 
employ it continuously in connection with His ministry, 
it was quite necessary that this title should precisely 
be His while on earth. 

" If Jesus is the future Messiah," says Lagrange, 
" we will have to explain how, during His life. He has 
thus readily taken the title and assumed the office of 
the Son of Man precisely predicted of the heavenly 
Messiah." ^ 

And Holtzmann observes : '' Jesus put into this title 
all that characterized His mission and ministry. . . . 
As He knew that this mission should be accomplished 
by suffering and death, the Son of Man became the 
object of prophecies referring both to His glory and 
to His sufferings. Thus it is that Jesus is and calls 
Himself the " Son of Man," when He proclaims and 
extends the Kingdom of God, in pardoning, in teach- 
ing, and in suffering. On the other hand, and in an 
especial manner, He thus styles Himself when He per- 
fects the Kingdom in coming upon the clouds of 
heaven. ... As the Kingdom of God is a reality 
present as well as future, so the title chosen by Jesus, 
as regards the bearing of His mission upon the King- 
dom, embraces the present as well as the future 
work." ^ 

If, then, we examine the texts impartially, it would 
seem that the Saviour presents Himself in the Gos- 
pels, not only as the one who was to be the Messiah 
at the end of time, but also as being already, during 
His earthly life, the Messiah in person and office. As 
we have seen, it is thus that He is represented in the 

1 Lagrange, art. : Jesus et la Crit. des Evang., Bullet, de 
Lit. EccL, 1904, p. 13 ; Holtzmann, H., Lehrb. N. T. TheoL, 
1897, vol. i, pp. 250-253. 



198 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

church of the ApostoUc times. No doubt, His resur- 
rection and His ascension shall manifest Him, in a 
divine manner, as the Messiah, or even, these events 
shall confirm- the triumphant Messiah in the perfect 
possession of His glory; but, properly speaking, they 
shall not constitute Him the Messiah. So too, His 
coming at the end of time shall be His advent as 
supreme judge of the world and chief of the eternal 
Kingdom; in a sense this will be the final Messianic 
advent, His coming as the triumphant and glorious 
Messiah par excellence. But if, so to say, this is to 
be the crown of His Messianic career, it shall not 
be, its beginning and inauguration. In His first ad- 
vent and in His earthly fife, in His Gospel ministry 
and in His redemptive work, Jesus is already person- 
ally and actually the Messiah, the Saviour of men. 

III. SOURCE OF MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS. 

Theory of Illusion. — How, we may ask, did Jesus 
come to believe and to deem Himself the Messiah? 
Whence did He become aware of His Messiahship? 
To the infidel critic this is the great problem, the 
utterly disconcerting problem. The rationalist, deny- 
ing aught that surpasses the natural, scouts the idea of 
an authentically real Messiah, of a person actually sent 
by God to represent Him among men and to establish 
at the world's end the eternal kingdom of the Elect. 
To believe such critics, Jesus, in claiming to be the 
Messiah, could not speak the truth. We have, then, 
two hypotheses between which we must choose: either 
Jesus was deceived, or He was a deceiver. 

Was Jesus, indeed, deceiving? Did He lie by pre- 
tending to be what He knew He was not, namely, the 
Messiah ? No one nowadays dreams of accepting such 
a theory: the Saviour's loyalty to truth is far beyond 
suspicion. No' one more fiercely censured the hypoc- 
risy of the Pharisees than He. No one more ur- 
gently enforced the agreement between the outer and 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



199 



the inner life, the accord between words and actions 
with the soul's inward emotions, in a word, sincerity 
and uprightness as founded upon the universal and 
constant principle that, although men may see only the 
outward view, God indeed discerns the depths of 
hearts. He wished that His disciples would banish 
from their speech every oath as being superfluous : the 
Christian should be content to use the simple asser- 
tion: Yea, yea; nay, nay. Surely, such a love for 
truthfulness in others defends Him from all suspicion 
of dissimulation, and especially of lying, in such an im- 
portant matter as His divine mission and Messianic 
dignity.^ 

All His words, nay, all His acts breathe a humihty, 
a frankness, an uprightness that forcibly impress every- 
one, believer or infidel, that cares to study His dis- 
courses and His conduct. Dare we say that an im- 
poster, with the view to declare Himself the Messiah, 
has employed that admirable delicacy, reserve, and 
discretion witnessed in the Gospel story? Would He 
have so carefully avoided favoring the popular pre- 
judices and profiting by the passions of the multitude? 
Would He, as Jesus, have sustained so firmly His 
claims even until death ? The Passion, the crucifixion, 
as undergone in support of the testimony rendered to 
His Messiahship, — here truly is the unexceptionable 
proof of the sincerity of the Saviour's convictions. 

Jesus, to be sure, did not want to be a deceiver. 
Therefore, the rationahst critic concludes, he deceived 
Himself: Jesus, it is said, was the victim of illu- 
sion ! But, how explain such illusion ? How did Jesus, 
in spite of the real facts, come to be falsely per- 
suaded and yet deeply convinced that He was the 
Messiah? Such, in a word, is the problem that con- 
fronts the infidel critic, and which Rationalists have 
sought to solve, 

i Mt. vi. 37. 



200 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

The various attempts at its solution, generally speak- 
ing, start out from the idea that Jesus' illusion on this 
point was the result of His human soul's activity, of 
a slowly progressive evolution which naturally af- 
fected His thoughts through the influence of His en- 
vironment, — the prevailing ideas and His personal 
temperament, — and which ended in that profound and 
very strong conviction that He was the Messiah, the 
Son of God. 

Renan. — This alleged soul-development in Jesus 
has been described by no author with a greater dis- 
play of literary ability nor with a finer appearance of 
critical acumen than by Ernest Renan. His endeavor 
in psychological reconstruction, sketched in his " Life 
of Jesus," is still, and no doubt shall remain the su- 
preme effort of infidel criticism to explain rationally 
the Saviour's consciousness of His Messiahship. 

In Renan's opinion, the beginning of all that psy- 
chological progress in Jesus was His settled convic- 
tion that He enjoyed an intimate union with God. 
His soul enjoyed it in a manner so special that He 
believed Himself to stand towards God as a son to 
His father. Nay more, He beHeved Himself to be, 
in a higher degree than others, the Son of God. And 
Renan thinks that this persuasion of Jesus was so 
firm, so abiding that it probably had no beginning and 
clung to the very fibers of His being. 

" The development of living character," says Renan, 
" is everywhere the same ; and it cannot be doubted 
that the growth of a personality so powerful as that 
of Jesus followed very strict laws. An exalted con- 
ception of the Divinity, — not due to Judaism, and 
seemingly the creation of His own great soul, — was, 
in a manner, the germ of all His power. . . . God 
does not speak to Him as to one outside Himself ; God 
is in Him. He feels Himself close to God, and draws 
from His own heart all that He says of His Father. 
He lives in the bosom of God by contact at every 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 201 

moment. . . . He believes Himself to be in direct 
communication with God; He believes Himself to be 
a son of God. The highest consciousness of God that 
has existed in the bosom of humanity is that of Jesus. 
. . . Jesus, no doubt, did not reach at one step this 
high assertion of Himself; but it is probable that, 
from the first. He looked on Himself as standing 
with God in the relation of a son to His father. Here 
lies His true originahty: for this He owes nothing to 
His own people. Neither the Jew nor the Mussulman 
has understood this delightful theology of love." ^ 

Convinced that He was the Son of God, Jesus 
soon realized that He had a mission, namely, to ad- 
mit all men to a share in His divine Sonship by teach- 
ing them to know God as their Father and to worship 
Him as sons. 

" Rising boldly above the prejudices of His nation. 
He would establish the universal Fatherhood of God. 
. . . He establishes the supreme consolation, — re- 
course to the Father whom each one has in heaven, 
and the true Kingdom of God which each one bears 
in His own heart. The expression, " Kingdom of 
God," or " Kingdom of Heaven," was the favorite 
phrase by which Jesus described the revolution He 
was bringing into the world. . . . Near the end of 
His life, Jesus seems to have believed that it would 
be realized in a material form by a sudden renovation 
of the world ; but this was, doubtless, not His first idea. 
. . . The realistic conception of the Divine Advent 
was only a cloud, a transient error, which His death 
has made us forget. He who founded the true King- 
dom of God, the kingdom of the meek and the humble, 
was the Jesus of the earlier period, of those pure and 
cloudless days when the voice of His Father re-echoed 
within His bosom in clearer tones. It was, then, for 
some months, — a year perhaps, — that God truly dwelt 
on earth." ^ 

^Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 131-133. ^ Ibid., p. 133. 



202 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Again, " it appears that His stay near John, not so 
much by the influence of the Baptist as by the natural 
growth of His own thought, ripened many of His ideas 
about the ' kingdom of heaven '. . . . He is no longer 
the delightful moralist merely, aspiring to embody sub- 
lime lessons in a few vivid and concise aphorisms ; He 
is a revolutionary of lofty aim, who attempts to re- 
new the world from its very base, and to establish on 
earth the ideal He has conceived. ... In the world, 
as it is, evil has the upper hand. . . . The reign of 
goodness is to have its turn. The advent of this reign 
of goodness is to be a great and sudden revolution. 
The world will seem turned upside down." ^ 

" Who is to establish this kingdom of God ?" asks 
Renan. " Let us recall that the first thought of Jesus, 
— a thought so deeply rooted in Him that it probably 
had no source outside, but lay in the very roots of 
His being, — was that He was the Son of God, the 
bosom friend of His Father, the agent of His will. 
The reply of Jesus to such a question could not, then, 
be doubtful. The persuasion that He should found 
the kingdom of God took absolute possession of His 
mind. He looked upon Himself as the universal re- 
former. Heaven, earth, all Nature, insanity, disease, 
and death are only His instruments. In the glow of 
His heroic will, He believes Himself all-powerful. If 
the earth does not lend itself to this complete trans- 
formation, it will be broken up, purified by fire and 
by the breath of God. A new heaven will be created, 
and the whole earth will be peopled with the angels 
of God." 2 

From this point, thinks Renan, it was but a step to 
identity Himself with the Messiah, the chief ideal of 
the future Kingdom. " Haunted by an idea more and 
more imperious, Jesus henceforth follows calmly, as if 
under a certain doom, the path marked out for Him 

J- Renan, of>. cit., pp. 162, 163. ^ Ibid., p. 164. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 203 

by His astonishing genius and the extraordinary cir- 
cumstances in which He hved. . . . On His return to 
GaUlee, He boldly proclaimed the ' glad tidings of the 
Kingdom of God/ This Kingdom was at hand; and 
He, Jesus, was that ' Son of Man ' whom Daniel in his 
vision had beheld as the divine herald of the final and 
supreme revelation. . . . But this chief passage of 
Daniel struck the mind ; the phrase ' Son of Man ' be- 
came, at least in certain schools, one of the titles of 
the Messiah, regarded as judge of the world and as 
King of the new era about to open. The application 
made of it by Jesus to Himself, accordingly, pro- 
claims His Messiahship, and affirms the coming catas- 
trophe in which He was to appear as Judge, invested 
with the full powers delegated to Him by the Ancient 
of Days." ^ 

It may be noted, in passing, that O. Schmiedel main- 
tains that Jesus at first believed Himself to be the 
Prophet of the Kingdom, and then, by His success, 
had come to believe Himself the Messiah.^ 

Nevertheless, in the measure that Jesus' conviction 
of His Messiahship grows stronger, the difficulties in 
the way of His work increase, the opposition of the 
Pharisees becomes more menacing: He perceives that 
before becoming the triumphant Messiah, He must 
first of all .undergo suffering and death. " His ideas 
are henceforth spoken with perfect clearness. . .' . 
The Law must be abolished; and He is the one ap- 
pointed to abolish it. The Messiah is come; and He 
it is who is the Messiah. The Kingdom of God is 
soon to be revealed. He knows well that He will fall 
a victim to His boldness ; but the Kingdom of God 
cannot be conquered without violence : it must be es- 
tablished through shocks and rendings. The Son of 

1 Renan, op. cit., pp. 172, 173. 

2 Schmiedel, Die Hauptprobleme der Lehen Jesu Fors- 
chung, 1902. 



204 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Man after His death will return in glory, accompanied 
by legions of angels, and those who have rejected Him 
will be overwhelmed." ^ 

On His last journey towards Jerusalem, the thought 
of His approaching death had become a matter of 
conviction. '' Jesus went in advance, lost in thought. 
They all gazed at Him in silence with a feeling of 
dread, not daring to question Him. He had already 
spoken to them at various times of His future suffer- 
ings, and they had listened reluctantly. Jesus, at 
length, spoke out, and, no longer concealing His pre- 
sentiments, addressed them on His approaching end. 
This caused a great sadness in the whole company. 
. . . For Himself, Jesus was confirmed in the thought 
that He was about to die, but that His death would 
save the world." ^ 

Criticism. — Such is, according to Renan, the soul- 
development which Jesus experienced on the subject 
of His Messiahship. In describing it, he is surely 
compelled to ask himself how, from the view-point of 
sound reason such a psychological process should be 
termed. Naturally enough, the word " insanity " oc- 
curs to his mind, and, very often, slips from his pen. 
He was inclined to adhere to this view, so very strange 
and extravagant appeared to him Jesus' pretension to 
be the Messiah, the supreme judge of men. and the in- 
a'ugurator of God's eternal kingdom. Still, he could not 
abide by such an explanation; for, on the other hand, 
it seemed to him that it was not less unHkely that a 
fool could have had such wisdom, achieved so great 
a work, exerted an influence so mighty and so bene- 
ficient upon all humanity. And then, he entrenches 
himself within a vaporous dilettantism, he clings to 
the vague and the unprecise, proffering a medley of 
hair-splittings, and forever correcting the most con- 
tradictory insinuations, the one by the other. 

1 Renan, op. cit., pp. 252, 253. 2 /^/j.^ pp_ 354^ 355^ 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 205 

Under the alluring veil of style that masks the line 
of argument employed by this master of rhetorical 
criticism, an impartial analyst will perceive that, 
while pretending to utterly disclaim the word " mad- 
ness," or " insanity," Renan still somewhat insists 
upon the fact itself. Thus, as regards the Saviour's 
persuasion that He was intimately united with God 
and was the Son of God, he ventures this blasphemous 
suggestion : " In this, the madman is close beside the 
man inspired." Of course, he soon checks himself: 
" Only, the madman never succeeds. It has not yet 
been given to mental aberration to act seriously upon 
the progress of mankind." But, for all that, the in- 
sinuation stands: he ascribed to insanity Jesus' con- 
viction of His relationship with God. So too, must he 
ascribe to a sort of abnormal and mystical exaltation, 
bordering upon madness, Jesus' prophecy about His 
coming at the end of the world to judge all men and 
to secure the final establishment of the Kingdom of 
God.^ 

To be sure, Renan affects to find some excuse for 
such an extravagant illusion on the part of Jesus: 
" Let us overlook," he says, " His hope of a vain 
apocalypse, of a second coming in great triumph upon 
the clouds of heaven. . . . The realistic conception of • 
the Divine Advent was only a cloud, a transient error, 
which death has made us forget." So that, he deems 
the Jesus of the final advent as merely an enthusiast 
misled by popular revelations, — a sort of visionary and 
illuminist whose imagination argues in Him an in- 
creasing over-exaltation and whose soul was crushed 
by sorrow. He writes : " Carried away by this tre- 
mendous sweep of enthusiasm, and governed by the 
demands of a preaching more and more exalted, Jesus 
was no longer free ; He belonged to His mission and 
in a sense to mankind. Sometimes one might have 

1 Renan, op. cit., p. 133. 



2o6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

said that His reason was unbalanced. He suffered 
great anguish and disturbance of mind. The great 
vision of the Kingdom of God, flaming constantly be- 
fore His eyes, dazzled Him." ^ 

Thus Jesus' claims do not appear humanly expli- 
cable unless we suppose like Renan, that He suffered 
from an abnormal exaltation verging on insanity. To 
that infidel critic, then, Jesus would be, at all events, 
either a madman, or the victim of illusions. 

Does this partial mental aberration of the illusion- 
ist, this semi-insanity of the visionary, however, suf- 
fice to explain the unusual character of the Saviour's 
claims to Messiahship? Is it credible? That a car- 
penter of Nazareth, — such was Jesus in popular es- 
teem, — could have pretended to be, we will not say 
merely an envoy of heaven, a privileged prophet of 
God, but the very Son of God, greater than Jonas, 
greater than Solomon, greater than the most illustrious 
men of the Old Law ; that He should imagine Himself 
to be the regenerator of humanity, who was to reveal 
to men the true religion of the Father, the Messiah of 
whom " the prophets had written with only Him in 
view," and " the mirror in which all the prophetic spirit 
of Israel had read the future " ; that, above all. He had 
dared to conceive and to declare His coming upon the 
clouds of heaven at the world's end, escorted by the 
holy angels in all the splendor of divine power in order 
to preside at the solemn trial of the human race, tO' pro- 
nounce Himself the final sentence upon the good and 
the bad, and, finally, to inaugurate the glorious reign 
of the eternal Kingdom of God ; that this village work- 
man should have had such immeasurably extravagant 
pretensions, and that He should have entertained 
them, not for the passing moment, but for many long 
months, nay, that He should have cherished them 
even unto His death, — truly such a man must have 

1 Renan, op. clt., pp. 135, 314. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



207 



been insane. Mere mental exaltation, partial illu- 
sion, is not enough to explain, humanly speaking, the 
excessive and unusual character of these pretensions. 
In any case, we have to suppose a deranged condition 
unexampled in the annals of human pathology, and 
which any sane person could only regard as the ut- 
most and wildest folly.^ 

This fact is apparently quite a difficulty in Kenan's 
estimation. But notice how he tries to elude it ! " If 
we may believe one version," he says, " the high-priest 
then adjured Him to say if He were the Messiah. 
Jesus confessed it, and even proclaimed before the as- 
sembly the near approach of His heavenly reign. The 
courage of Jesus, who had resolved to die, did not re- 
quire that." An odd way to twist the texts, to be 
sure. Observe, too, that what Renan calls one version 
is really the account of the three Synoptists. In fact, in 
a foot-note he states : " Mt. xxvi. 64 ; Mk. xiv. 62 ; Lk. 
xxii. 69. The Fourth Gospel speaks of no such in- 
cident." But he fails to note that this latter gospel 
shows that Jesus explicitly declared His Messiahship 
before Pilate, and that the Sanhedrin stated that the 
reason for the death-sentence pronounced against Him 
was that " He made Himself the Son of God." Thus, 
may we judge how much of the partisan, a priori 
animus, in defiance of every scientific fact, permeates 
the method of a so-called independent critic.^ 

Another critic, Wernle, says that " Jesus died with 
the beHef in His speedy return in Messianic glory, 
which belief causes every thoughtful person the great- 
est difficulty at the present day. Compared with 
this, even the Messianic problem has but little import- 
ance. . . . The doubt will still arise whether it was 
really Jesus Himself, whether it was not, after all, 
His disciples who were the authors of this fantastic 

1 Renan, op. cit, p. 267. 

^ Ibid., p. 373; Mt. xxvi. 64; Mk, xiv. 62; Lk. xxii. 69; 
Jo. xix. 7. 



2o8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

and erroneous conception. But we must silence our 
modern modes of thought when facts speak so clearly 
and so decisively. However much may be a later addi- 
tion in the eschatological speeches of Jesus, the con- 
stant element in them is just this thought of the second 
coming. It is this thought around which the whole of 
the apocalyptic theory has crystallized, and not vice 
versa." Wernle at length reaches this strange con- 
clusion : " He accepted the idea under compulsion. 
He fought with it, broke it up, re-cast it; yet, a por- 
tion of the deception which it contained crept into his 
mind!"^ 

The theory of an Illusionist Messiah, it will be said, 
is untenable. Assuredly so : the best proof of the fact 
being that Renan does not venture to advance it and 
feels the need of protesting loudly against it. " Only 
the madman," he says, " never succeeds. It has not yet 
been given to mental aberration to act seriously upon 
the progress of mankind." Still, of itself this theory 
might account for Jesus' inconceivable illusion. But if 
this theory, supposing it is alone capable of rationally 
solving the problem, is nevertheless in too flagrant con- 
tradiction with the facts to admit of formulation, must 
we not thence simply conclude that rationalism is radi- 
cally powerless to explain away the Saviour's Mes- 
sianic convictions as being illusory ? ^ 

We may, accordingly, examine the more moderate 
theory as Renan thought it could be stated. Not 
only is it a priori to be rejected as being out of propor- 
tion with the data of the problem, and incapable of 
reasonably accounting for such claims as those made 
by the Saviour, but it is also self -destructive and ab- 
solutely discordant with the real facts. For, the 
very difficulties which prevent the critic from suppos- 

1 Wernle, op. cit., po. 50, 52 ; Bruce, art. : Jesus, E. B., par. 
32, col. 2453. 

2 Renan, op. cit, p. 131. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 209 

ing that Jesus was utterly and really insane likewise 
preclude the supposition of partial madness such as 
the alleged soul-frenzy and hallucination. Like the 
former, the latter theory expressly contradicts all our 
assured knowledge about Jesus' mental and moral 
temperament and His life and works. 

An attentive and unbiased study of the gospels will 
show that there is one trait which stands out plainly in 
the Saviour's character: it is His profoundly sincere 
humility. Naught more severe than His rebuke of the 
Pharisees because of their pride, their boasting, their 
love of show, their craving for the highest places. 
Naught more constantly urged on the other hand than 
humihty, care to avoid men's opinion in order to Hve 
as meek suppliants before God like the Publican. To 
enter the kingdom of Heaven, one must be as humble 
as a child. His disciples must consider themselves the 
servants of all, and as unprofitable servants ! He is 
come, not to be served, but to minister. He refuses 
honors, flees from the crowd, avoids unseemly show, 
and hides when men seek to enthrone Him! Truly 
might He call Himself meek and humble of heart. 

Was not such deep and sincere humility the safest 
preservative against such an unusual flight of imagi- 
nation and such an unbearable excess of pride as that 
of believing Himself the Son of God, the ideal Chief- 
tain, and the supreme judge of mankind? 

" This Jesus who preached humihty and knowledge 
of self," says Harnack, '' nevertheless named Himself, 
and Himself alone, as the Son of God . . . who, in 
spite of His lowliness, called Himself the Messiah." 

And again : " It is only of One that we know that 
He united the deepest humility and purity of will with 
the claim that He was more than all the prophets 
before Him : the Son of God." ^ 

1 Harnack, What is Christianity f pp. 139, 149; Christianity 
and History, p. 37. 

14 



210 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

" The most wonderful feature in Jesus," says 
Wernle, '' is the co-existence of a self-consciousness 
that is more than human, with the deepest humility 
before God." ^ 

Who is there, on the other land, that has not ad- 
mired the depth and brilliance of His intelligence, the 
incomparable candor and high-mindedness manifested 
in all His remarks and discourses? None knew man 
better than He: none has given a higher or more ex- 
cellent idea of God than He has afforded. As His 
philosophy of religion has eclipsed all the ancient sys- 
tems, so has His moral code become the standard for 
mankind to follow. He has found disciples among 
the greatest geniuses, and, even at this day. His doc- 
trine is the food of thinkers, while His words com- 
pel the investigation, and His axioms the admiration 
of the fiercest infidels. 

Thus Renan admits that He " taught the noblest 
moral lesson that man has ever received. . . . He con- 
ceived the true city of God, the genuine * new birth,' 
the Sermon on the Mount, the ennobling of the weak, 
the love of the people, tenderness to the poor, the 
strengthening anew of all that is humble, true, and 
simple. This rehabilitation He has depicted, as an 
incomparable artist, by features which will last for- 
ever. Each of us is in debt to Him for that which is 
best in himself." ^ 

It shall ever seem improbable, nay impossible, there- 
fore, that an intelligence so lofty and brilliant as His 
could have co-existed with the most absurd folly. As- 
suredly the world's greatest and finest mind could not 
have belonged to humanity's greatest fool. 

'' That Jesus' message is so great and so powerful," 
observed Harnack, " lies in the fact that it is so simple, 
and, on the other hand, so rich; so simple as to be 

1 Wernle, op. cit., p. 25. 

2 Renan, op. cit., pp. 165, 288. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 21I 

exhausted in each of the leading thoughts which He 
uttered ; so rich that every one of these thoughts seems 
to be inexhaustible and the full meaning of the say- 
ings and parables beyond our reach." ^ 

'^ His spiritual intuitions," says Bruce, " are pure 
truth, and valid for all ages. God, man, and the moral 
ideal cannot be more truly or happily conceived. Far 
from having outgrown His thoughts on these themes, 
we are only beginning to perceive their true signifi- 
cance. How long it will be before full effect shall be 
given to His radical doctrine of the dignity of man! 
How entirely in accord with the moral order of the 
world, as interpreted by the whole history of mankind, 
His doctrine of sacrifice as at once the penalty and 
the power of righteousness in an evil world !" ^ 

How impressive, indeed, is the depth and extent of 
the Saviour's wisdom in all His words and deeds! 
Renan speaks of enthusiasm, soul-frenzy, impulsive- 
ness, as his theory demanded ; but naught is more op- 
posed to the Gospel. In contrast to the impulsiveness 
of the people and the enthusiasm of the disciples is 
indeed the peace, the calmness, the seriousness of 
Jesus, His clear conviction of His mission, His sub- 
limely placid view of His destiny. His prudent reserve 
in revealing Himself. Not a single Gospel event can 
serve as a support for. Renan^s assertions. Every- 
where the Saviour appears wonderfully serene, and 
ever with the air of calm and noble majesty. His 
self-control. His mastery of emotions in the most try- 
ing and various circumstances impresses even His ene- 
mies. In all sincerity, then, it must be granted that 
His perfectly balanced temperament is irreconcilable, 
not only with utter madness, but also with Renan's 
alleged hallucination or soul-frenzy on the part of 
Jesus, especially to such a strangely extravagant de- 
gree as this critic would have us to suppose. 

1 Harnack, What is Christianity f p. 55. 

2 Bruce, art. : Jesus, E. B., par. ^^, col. 2454. 



212 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Jesus " is always modest, humble, sane and sober," 
writes Wernle, " and yet always conscious of being 
more than a man. It is quite impossible to realize 
such an inner life as this." ^ 

While O, Holtzmann remarks that '' in His subse- 
quent ministry, Jesus gives such strong proofs of the 
clearness and certainty of His judgment, and of the 
strength with which His will is ever directed towards 
definite good ends, that it is quite impossible in His 
case to trace these visions to any mental affection. . . . 
The vigorous manner in which He at the same time 
took up the profession ... of a preacher shows that 
Jesus was far from giving evidence of an enthusiast, 
while there is nothing at all fantastical in the substance 
of His preaching." ^ 

Harnack, also, recognizes that *' He is possessed of 
a quiet, uniform, collected demeanor, with everything 
directed to one goal. He never uses any ecstatic lan- 
guage, and the tone of stirring prophecy is rare. En- 
trusted with the greatest of all missions. His eye and 
ear are open to every impression of the life around 
Him, — a proof of intense calm and absolute cer- 
tainty." 3 

Kenan's theory, moreover, is no less certainly in- 
admissible when we consider what an influence Jesus 
exerted upon His immediate disciples, upon the early 
Church, and upon the future destiny of mankind. 
Renan himself has said : " This great foundation was, 
in truth, the personal work of Jesus. To make Him- 
self adored to this degree. He must have been worthy 
to be adored. Love is kindled only by an object 
worthy of it; and did we know nothing of Jesus ex- 
cept the passion He inspired in those around Him, still 
we must affirm that He was great and stainless. The 



1 Wernle, op. cit., p. 41. 

2 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 137. 

3 Harnack, What is Christianity f pp. 38-39. 



I 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 213 

faith, the enthusiasm, the constancy of the first Chris- 
tian generation are to be explained only by assuming, 
at the beginning of it all, a man of transcendent great- 
ness." ^ 

How, then, can Renan's theory of partial insanity 
on Jesus' part, be reconciled with such a statement as 
this? To say that an unbalanced mind could achieve 
such wondrous moral reforms in His immediate fol- 
lowers, and so gently, although so strongly, influence 
the first apostles, and later become the head of that 
marvelous soul-movement called the early church, — is 
not this a contradiction in terms ? 

And then the future destiny of the world, — Renan 
also extols the incomparable influence which Christ 
exerted thereon. We may ask, indeed, whether an un- 
happy victim of hallucination could elicit from this 
critic that panegyric which, despite its plainly affected 
dithyramb, is so significant because issuing from 
the pen of an infidel ? 

" Rest now in Thy glory, noble Founder," exclaims 
Renan. " Thy work is completed : Thy divinity is 
established. Fear no more to see the edifice of Thy 
efforts crumble through any fault! Henceforth, be- 
yond all frailty, Thou shalt see, from the depth of Thy 
divine peace, the unending results that follow from 
Thy deeds. At the cost of a few hours of suffering, 
which have not even touched Thy great soul. Thou 
hast achieved immortality the most complete. During 
thousands of years, the world will breathe life from 
Thee. Around Thee, as an ensign lifted above our 
conflicts, will be fought the hottest battle. A thousand 
times more living, more beloved, since Thy death than 
during the days of Thy pilgrimage here below, Thou 
wilt become so completely the corner-stone of human- 
ity, that to tear Thy name from the record of this 
world would be to disturb its very foundations, 

1 Renan, op. cit., p. 412. 



214 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Henceforth, men shall draw no boundary between 
Thee and God. Do Thou, who hast completely van- 
quished death, take possession of Thy kingdom, 
whither, by the royal road Thou hast pointed out, long 
generations of adorers shall follow Thee !" ^ 

No ! He who holds such a place in the world's his- 
tory, who has beheld the greatest geniuses as also the 
humblest minds enter His school, who has enabled 
mankind to achieve great progress at once mental, 
moral, and religious, and to which history finds noth- 
ing comparable, — such a being could not have been a 
madman, nor the victim of hallucination. 

" Jesus Christ," says Harnack, " was the first to 
bring the value of every human soul to light, and 
what He did no one can any more undo. We may 
take up what relation to Him we will : in the history 
of the past no one can refuse to recognize that it was 
He who raised humanity to this level." ^ 

How could He have been a madman, or an illusion- 
ist of whom Renan has also written : " Let us place 
the person of Jesus, then, at the highest summit of hu- 
man greatness. . . . He is the one who has impelled 
His fellow-men to take the longest step towards the 
divine. ... In Him was gathered whatever is good 
and elevated in our nature. . . . Whatever unlooked- 
for events the future may have in store, Jesus will 
never be surpassed. His worship will unceasingly re- 
new its youth ; His story will call forth endless tears ; 
His sufferings will subdue the noblest hearts ; all ages 
will proclaim that, among the sons of men, no one has 
been born who is greater than He." ^ 

In a word, the only theory which a Rationalist can 
imagine to account for the Saviour's consciousness of 
being the Messiah, is utterly irreconcilable with the 

1 Renan, op. cit., pp. 395-396. 

2 Harnack, op. cit., p. y^)- 

3 Renan, op. cit., pp. 413, 420, 421. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



215 



ascertained facts about His person and the indubitable 
realities of history. This hypothesis, none has pre- 
sented, nor, let us say, can hope to offer, more cleverly 
than Renan. He has employed all the suppleness of 
his varied and divergent genius, all the resources of his 
talent as a critic and rhetorician. His explanation, 
however, is so confused, so contradictory, so designedly 
unprecise and vague, that it cannot satisfy an earnest 
mind which falls not under the subtlety of sophism 
nor the magic of style, but is eager to test the proofs 
and to verify the correctness of his method of argu- 
ment. 

It might even be said that Renan's anxiety to elevate 
Jesus' personality to the pinnacle of humanity, past 
and future, his affected manner in utterly denying a 
formal accusation of madness or imposture ; his in- 
sistance in excusing the Saviour from what he calls 
" a cloud," a " passing error," when it is question of a 
basic idea maintained until His death ; the shifting, 
elusive, cleverly suggestive and roundabout insinua- 
tions whereby he broaches the idea of illusion or semi- 
insanity, without, however, daring to say so in words, 
as if ashamed to resort to such an expedient : — we may 
say that all this procedure is the best proof of the 
falsity of his thesis. 

If Renan, with all his critical subtilties, with all the 
agility of his literary genius, could only offer, in the 
end, a method of argument so flimsy and an explana- 
tion so manifestly contradictory, we have again the 
best demonstration of the truth of Jesus' claims to be 
the Messiah, and, therefore, of the truth of Chris- 
tianity.^ 

Theory of Evolution. — Among the Protestant 
scholars who profess liberal views in Biblical matters, 
and who, while fully admitting the existence of a per- 
sonal God, have nevertheless too often imbibed the 

1 Renan, op. cit.; cf. Lepin, lesus Messie, pp, 158, 161; 
Engl. tr. 204-206. 



2i6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

opinions of Rationalists, there prevails a theory which 
has many points in common with the one advanced by 
Renan and other thoroughgoing promoters of the 
Rationalistic school. As far as we can judge from 
their declarations, too often very vague, they consider 
Jesus as being truly the Messiah chosen by God, but, 
nevertheless, a Man-Messiah, a sort of prophet, greater 
than the other prophets, and especially sent by God to 
establish the Christian religion. We are told that, born 
Hke other men, and strictly bound by the laws of men- 
tal and moral development, as also by those of physical 
growth imposed upon the progeny of Adam, He be- 
came aware of His Messiahship only through a 
gradual soul-effort like that described by Renan. We 
are told that Jesus' idea of His Messiahship was, at 
first vague and incomplete, very uncertain, filled with 
misgivings, and mingled with egregious errors. Hence, 
it is claimed, Jesus needed the influence of outward 
events, as also the patient, laborious effort of His own 
soul, if not some divine inspiration, to specify, to make 
clear, to strengthen, to fully manifest and assure this 
conviction. Such critics, then, regard the Saviour's 
Messianic consciousness as the result of a complex and 
progressive soul-activity just as do the avowed Ra- 
tionalists, the only difference being that, whilst the 
Rationalist critic calls it an illusion, the Liberal Pro- 
testant maintains its reality. 

Stapfer. — The leading exponent of the Liberal 
Protestant position is Edmund Stapfer, who is now 
considered as the representative of Liberal Protestant- 
ism throughout France, and at present Dean of the 
Faculty of Protestant Theology of Paris. Although 
firmly rejecting Renan's position, he remarks that 
Jesus "called Himself the Messiah. That is proved: 
it is certain. How did He reach that point ? Was He 
crazy, — yes or no? Such, it seems to us, is the sole 
alternative which henceforth forces itself between be- 
lievers and unbelievers." ^ 

1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ Before His Ministry, p. xiii, 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



217 



And again : '* Renan has said that Jesus, intoxicated 
by success, beHeved Himself to be the Messiah. He was 
perfectly sane at the beginning of His ministry. He 
was no longer so at its close ; and His history, as Renan 
relates it, notwithstanding the carefulness with which 
He treats it, is the history of the growing excitement 
of a man who began with good sense, clearness of 
vision, the moral health of a fine and noble genius, 
and who ended in a sickly exaltation next-door to in- 
sanity. The word ' madness ' was not written by 
Renan, but the thought may be found expressed on 
every page. Well, the facts are opposed to this ex- 
planation." ^ 

" On the contrary," Stapfer continues, " that in Him 
which is most striking, the more closely one studies 
Him, is His possession of Himself, His clear-sighted- 
ness. His complete freedom from illusion." ^ 

And further : " It is exceedingly remarkable that the 
faith of Jesus in Himself and in His work remained 
absolutely true to itself. . . . This unalterable confid- 
ence of Jesus in His work. His Father, and Himself 
is certainly supernatural. . . . There is enormous 
strength, as a proof of the divine nature of Jesus, in 
this assurance which no external event could disturb." ^ 

Stapfer's method, however, in describing the origin 
of the Messianic consciousness and its gradual develop- 
ment prior to its full realization by Jesus resembles 
Renan's point by point. 

Like Renan, for instance, Stapfer perceives the be- 
ginning of Jesus' conviction of His Messiahship in 
His sentiment of special union with God, known as 
Father and as His Father. 

"Among the acts preparatory to His public life," 
says Stapfer, " we must include prayer, the hours 

1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, p. 222. 

2 Stapfer, Jesus Christ Before His Ministry, p. 181. 

3 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, pp. 208, 209. 



2i8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

spent with His Father. He knew how to ' close His 
door ' and * pray to His Father who seeth in secret ' ; 
but it was especially upon the heights which encircle 
the village that He found solitude and isolation. . . In 
this nature Jesus unceasingly saw the face of His 
Father. He had known this Father, and loved Him 
with all His heart, all His soul, all His strength, and 
all His thought from the very day when His pious 
mother taught Him to lisp His name ; and after having 
found His Fatherhood in the Old Testament, in the 
marvelous story of the deliverance of His people. He 
found it again on the solitary heights which overlook 
Nazareth." ^ 

In Stapfer's opinion, therefore, Jesus' conviction of 
His Messiahship is merely the normal evolution of His 
consciousness of being the Son of God. " We be- 
Heve," he says, " that it was the inward development of 
His moral consciousness which led Jesus to declare 
Himself the Saviour of the world. His vocation did 
not come to Him from without; it was not events 
which made Jesus the Son of God, for the events can 
only be explained by the consciousness which Jesus 
had of being the Son of God. . . . His faith in His 
Messianic vocation and His faith in His own perfect 
holiness were nothing else than a consciousness of 
His union with God, or faith in His own divinity." ^ 

Christ's realization of His Divine Sonship was, 
therefore, according to Stapfer, due to a gradual evo- 
lution whereby, through ever-increasing presentiments, 
He became convinced of His Messiahship. Stapfer 
thus represents the wonderings of the Child of Naza- 
reth : " Why am I in the world ? What is my mission ? 
What is to be my life?' And He also asked Himself 
that other question : ' Who would be the Messiah ? 
When would He appear? What work would He ac- 

1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ Before His Ministry, pp. 68, 7a 

2 Stapfer, op. cit., pp. 163, 164. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



219 



complish? Thus passed eighteen years, and He ar- 
rived slowly but surely at the unalterable conviction: 
' The Messiah ! I myself am He.' " ^ 

But it is at the Baptism, we are told, that occurred 
the climax of Jesus' soul-struggle concerning His 
Messiahship; and that then He at last reached the 
full conviction of His position as Messiah after pro- 
gressive mental effort and under an inner revelation 
of which Stapfer claims the account in the Gospels is 
merely an expressive symbol. 

" In fact,'' says Stapfer, " His Baptism marks the 
awakening of His Messianic consciousness. What He 
had already foreseen, was now realized. The question 
which for some time He had been asking Himself, 
' Might it be I ?' received its answer. The inward 
crisis through He was passing came to its acme and 
reached its end. He heard the voice of God saying to 
Him clearly : ' Thou art My well-beloved Son.' The 
voice resounded to the depths of His soul. Jesus 
heard God. We cannot for an instant doubt it; for, 
from this sacred hour, His conviction w^as not to be 
shaken. It was an absolute certainty; nothing could 
henceforth weaken it. He had come to the point w^here 
He could say : ' I am the Messiah,' because, f eehng 
Himself the child of His Father, He experienced an 
irresistible desire to realize among men the divine Son- 
ship. The development of His moral consciousness 
had brought Him to His definite conviction, to a cer- 
titude which to Him bore the marks of absolute 
evidence." ^ 

Stapfer also puts the further query : " But what 
kind of Messiah was He to be? What work was He 
to accomplish ? This question He put to Himself and 
went on to seek for its answer." ^ 

If we are to believe Stapfer, therefore, in its pre- 

1 Stapfer, op. cit., p. 71. 

^Ibid., pp. 127-128. ^Ibid., p. 128. 



220 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

liminary stage, the Messianic ideal detached itself 
from all that hitherto bound it to all base and material 
views, and this as the result of His soul-struggle of 
which the Gospel record of His Temptation in the 
desert is merely the symbolic expression. 

" The temptation," he says, " was not an isolated 
and momentary experience. It extended over all that 
part of Jesus' life which immediately followed His 
baptism. The Evangelists assign to it a duration of 
forty days. The number is symbolical, like the whole 
narrative. During forty days, and no doubt a much 
longer time, Jesus had been asking Himself what kind 
of Messiah He should be. The picturesque narrative 
of the Evangelists admirably describes the conflict 
through which His soul was passing, and the struggles 
which He had undergone. . . . Now, He knew He 
was the Messiah, and He could no longer escape the 
struggle. It came. It was terrible ; it was a gigantic 
battle out of which He came forth conqueror. His con- 
science was its battle-field ; His triumph in it was such 
that the temptation never again assailed Him. Over 
what did He triumph? Over false ideas, over the 
erroneous notion of His contemporaries, over all that 
He had believed and expected in common with His en- 
tire people." The Messianic ideal was to be freed 
from " superstition and Jewish fanaticism." Jesus 
was to be simply " the spiritual and moral Messiah. 
. . . His Kingdom should be established in mens' 
hearts : He would accomplish only a religious work." ^ 

But a further and final development is to mark the 
Saviour's idea of His Messiahship. Although a Mes- 
siah spiritual and moral. He shall suffer and die for 
the sake of His work. And it is the opposition of the 
Pharisees that leads Him to become aware of this 
dolorous destiny. 

" His Messianic ideas began," continues Stapfer, 

1 Stapfer, op. cit., pp. 138, 139, 151. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 221 

*^ to change their character. To the exterior drama 
now beginning — namely the opposition of the Phari- 
sees — corresponded henceforth an interior drama 
which nothing in history at all resembles. First, 
the possibility, then the extreme probability, and 
finally the certainty of a violent and approaching 
death, — such was the new element which was about 
to enter into His previsions of the future ; and, as His 
conviction that He was the Messiah never weakened 
for an instant, as the certitude of this which He had 
gained at His baptism was final and unalterable. He 
began to conceive of a Messiah who might be perse- 
cuted and put to death, and consequently who might 
disappear before the advent of the Kingdom. The as- 
sociation of these two ideals was something so strange 
and unheard-of, — a violent death on one side, and 
Messianism on the other, — it was so far outside of all 
that a Jew of that time could conceive or imagine, that 
it is impossible for us to picture to ourselves the in- 
terior struggles which Jesus must have gone through, 
the painful surprises, the acts of abnegation, and the 
immensity of the sacrifice to which He was called. . . 
Ah, it is certain that we shall never sound the depths 
of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus." ^ 

Jesus' inward struggle against the popular Messianic 
views of the Jews is thus described by Wernle : " The 
story of the temptation," he writes, '' signifies the 
breach of Jesus with all that is fanciful and politically 
dangerous in the conception of the Messiah. . . . He 
shall not be the Messiah dreamed of by the Zealots ; 
nor shall He be either the Messiah of the Rabbis. . . ; 
He resigns Himself to be, if God so wills it, the Mes- 
siah whom Israel rejects and the Gentiles accept. . . . 
Finally, the bitter experience that Jesus had gained 
in His dealings with the people caused the thought of 
the necessity of suffering, and even of death, to ripen 

1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, pp. 156, 157, 
158. 



222 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

in His soul. . . . Thus did Jesus, after much labor, 
purify the title of Messiah which He had at first as- 
sumed through an inner compulsion. Even for us, 
after all these centuries, there is something surpris- 
ingly grand as we observe how the idea is emptied of 
all the merely sensual and selfish elements, so that 
finally the image of the King in all His pomp and 
glory is turned into the tragic figure on the Cross." ^ 

Wendt, B. Weiss, O. Holtzmann, Harnack. — 
Such was the origin and gradual evolution of the 
Messianic consciousness according to Stapfer's theory. 
Its basis lies in the opinion advanced in Germany by 
Wendt, B. Weiss, and O. Holtzmann, and also recently 
accepted by Harnack. It is noteworthy, however, that 
these German critics are much less assertive than 
Stapfer, and describe far more cautiously these vari- 
ous phases of Jesus' soul-activity which he details 
so minutely. 

First of all, like Stapfer, they hold that Jesus' con- 
viction of being the Messiah was derived from His 
conviction of being the Son of God, and that it had 
taken shape in His mind when He began His pub- 
lic ministry. 

Wendt, for instance, thinks that on entering upon 
His public Hfe Jesus felt convinced that He enjoyed 
a special union of Sonship with His heavenly Father 
as also extraordinary divine gifts as a result thereof, 
and further that somehow this deep persuasion helped 
Him to become aware of His Messianic mission, 
namely, the establishment of the Kingdom of God 
in the world by imparting to all men its essential ele- 
ment, sonship with God.^ 

Whence, therefore, did Jesus reach the conviction 
of His divine Sonship? Wendt assigns its origin to 
the study of the Holy Scriptures, which taught Him 

^Wernle, op. cit., pp. 47, 48, 49. 
2 Wendt, op. cit, p. 94. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY ^23 

to revere God as Father, and also to His early home- 
training whereby His soul was filled with deep senti- 
ments of religion and tender devotion. Wendt says, 
however, that " the certainty, clearness, and perfection 
with which Jesus grasped the Scripture revelation of 
the fatherly love of God, is not found in the mere in- 
fluence of the piety of His parents. That must be 
sought in the peculiar spiritual power which belonged 
to Himself and which He felt to be a miraculous 
Divine endowment, a blessed pledge of the fatherly 
love of God bestowed upon Himself, and a lively con- 
straining impulse to childhke obedience to the will 
of God." ^ 

But Wendt declares that we cannot maintain that 
the Saviour's profound conviction of possessing such 
a God-given gift. His persuasion of being the recipient 
of so special a grace, had its origin during the course 
of His earthly life. 

" On the ground of the religious self-consciousness 
which prompted the later words and acts of Jesus, we 
can affirm that, so far back as that religious conscious- 
ness extended, He had always felt Himself in a re- 
lation of Sonship to God. Certainly, this feeling had 
grown within Him gradually and had widened and 
deepened. Along with the general development of 
His spiritual and moral hfe, the true and full signi- 
ficance of His loving fellowship with God, and His 
endowment of divine life and grace, and His sense of 
filial duty towards God had unfolded. But, in order 
to attain that conscious standing in grace, and that 
position of filial freedom, Jesus had not to work His 
way out of servile legalism. From first to last. He 
was conscious of His filial relation to God. . . . Jesus, 
even from childhood, was clearly sensible of the fath- 
erly love of God, and of His filial relationship to God, 
and He remained faithful to that early assurance." 

^ Wendt, op. cit., p. 99. 



224 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

" Perhaps, even long before He began His public 
ministry," continues Wendt, " He was not yet fully 
aware of the relation of His religious conception to 
the setting-up of the long expected Kingdom of God; 
in other words. He did not as yet know that, in His 
perfect knowledge of the fatherly love of God, and in 
His own perfect embodiment of the filial relation to 
God, the principle of the fulfilment of the Divine pro- 
mises in the Old Testament in regard to salvation 
were in the highest sense contained. ... At the mo- 
ment when Jesus underwent the baptism of John, 
He received and He alone, according to the clear ac- 
count in Mark, which is corroborated in the further 
course of the history, the revelation which imparted to 
Him His Messianic consciousness ; He became con- 
vinced that the Spirit of God, which was to be pos- 
sessed and given by the Messiah, had been imparted 
to Him, and that He now deserves, as the Heavens 
themselves testified, the titles of Son of God and Well- 
Beloved of the Father, which, according to the Old 
Testament promises, belonged also to the Messiah. 
No doubt Jesus was previously conscious that He was 
the Son of God, and an object of the divine compla- 
cency; but, through this revelation was awakened the 
consciousness of a unique pre-eminence of sonship in 
relation to God, and of the unique significance which, 
in virtue of this pre-eminence. He should have for the 
establishment of the Kingdom of God and the Mes- 
sianic dispensation. . . . The consciousness of His 
special endowment by God and His pre-eminent posi- 
tion among men, must, for Him, have involved a re- 
cognition of His special duty in regard to God, and of 
His special vocation. . . . He was to impart to other 
men the knowledge and the reality of this relationship ; 
and therefore, also. He was to be the founder of the 
promised Kingdom of God." ^ 

1 Wendt, op. cit.,-pp. loo-ioi. 



( 

I 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



225 



It is also the impression of B. Weiss that " the fact 
that Jesus' consciousness of His Messiahship was 
gradually matured is manifestly connected with His 
genuinely human development." ^ 

He thinks, as does Wendt, that it arose from the 
Saviour's consciousness of His divine Sonship. 
Speaking of Jesus, he says that '' starting from the 
consciousness of His ethical Sonship, He arrived at 
consciousness of his official mission. . . . His divine 
Sonship is the deepest ground of the peculiar calling 
which is given Him as the Son of Man, and of the 
dignity which already appertains, and will one day 
appertain to Him; for, only the elect object of divine 
love can be called to the highest vocation." ^ 

While Wendt, however, apparently dates the origin 
of Jesus' realization of His Messiahship at the Bap- 
tism, while O. Holtzmann explicitly states that '' the 
awakening of the Messianic consciousness " occurred 
on that occasion ; that previously Jesus simply thought 
Himself called to the Kingdom, that, like other men, 
He was under obligation to receive the Baptism of 
Penance, and that only during the Vision which ac- 
companied the Baptism did He become aware of being 
the Messiah expected at the end of the world, the vicar 
of God in the Kingdom of Heaven.^ Weiss, on the 
other hand, thinks that Jesus was fully aware of His 
position as Messiah at the moment when He met S. 
John the Baptist. In his opinion, the revelation at 
the Baptism was simply the signal, given by God, that 
the time had come for Jesus to fulfil the Messianic 
mission of which He had already been made person- 
ally aware ; at the same time, the coming upon Him 
of the Holy Spirit imparted to Him the qualities and 
powers He needed for the accomplishment of that 
work. 

1 Weiss, B., Life of Jesus, p. 295. 

2 Weiss, B., Biblical Theology, vol. i, p. 81, n. i ; p. 82. 

3 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., pp. 136, 137. 

15 



226 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

" Jesus presented Himself for baptism," he says, 
" with entire consciousness of His Messiahship. . . . 
But He had been obhged to wait for the calling of 
God, telling Him that the hour had now struck for 
the salvation of His people. ... In the command of 
God summoning Him to baptism, He saw the long- 
expected token from His Father that the time was 
come to enter upon His Messianic career." ^ 

Nor do Harnack's views on this subject differ ap- 
preciably from those of Wendt and B. Weiss. He 
claims that the source of Jesus' conviction of His Mes- 
siahship was precisely His perception of the filial re- 
lationship which He bore to His Father. He thinks 
that Jesus became convinced that He knew God as 
•none had known Him before, and that His union 
with God was one of incomparable intimacy. Thus 
did He come to reahze Himself as the Son of God; 
thus He became persuaded that He was divinely sent 
to impart to men His personal knowledge of God as 
Father so that they might thereby be enabled to par- 
take of His own divine Sonship. 

" Jesus is convinced," says Harnack, " that Hei 
knows God in a way in which no one ever knew Him 
before, and He knows that it is His vocation to com- 
municate this knowledge of God to others by word 
and by deed, — and with it the knowledge that men 
are God's children. In this consciousness He knows 
Himself to be the Son called and instituted of God, 
and hence He can say: My God and My Father; 
and into this invocation He puts something which be- 
longs to no one but Himself." ^ 

Harnack also would derive Jesus' conviction of 
His Messiahship from His persuasion that He was 
the Son of God; but he does not venture to explain 
how Jesus passed from the one conviction to the 

^ Weiss, B., Life of Jesus, vol. i, pp. 295, 301, 323. 
2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 138. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



22y 



other, and merely observes that Jesus* reahzation of 
His Messianic role must have been already formed in 
His mind at His entrance upon His public ministry. 

" We shall never fathom," says Harnack, " the in- 
ward development by which Jesus passed from the 
assurance that He was the Son of God to the other 
assurance that He was the promised Messiah. . . . 
An inner event which Jesus experienced at His bap- 
tism was, in view of the oldest tradition the founda- 
tion of His Messianic consciousness. It is not an 
experience which we can verify; still less are we in a 
position to contradict it. On the contrary, there is a 
strong probability that, when He made His public ap- 
pearance. He had already settled accounts with Him- 
self. The Evangelists preface their narrative of His 
public activity with a curious story of a temptation. 
This story assumes that He was already conscious of 
being the Son of God and the One who was entrusted 
with the mission of fulfilling God's promises to His 
people ; we see Him, moreover, overcoming tempta- 
tions that bore relation to His Messianic conscious- 
ness." '"- 

But if the Saviour, even from the beginning of His 
ministry, is fully aware of His Messianic vocation, it 
may be asked if He had thereafter an equally perfect 
and definite knowledge of the precise position await- 
ing Him as the Messiah ? 

Stapfer's views on this matter are by no means ap- 
proved by Wendt, B. Weiss, O. Holtzmann, and Har- 
nack. Jesus' temptation in the desert, they say, 
somehow helped to form His conviction of His Mes- 
sianic mission; but, strictly speaking, their method of 
solving the problem does not imply a higher develop- 
ment of the Messianic ideal, nor a divergence from 
the erroneous popular notions. 

" Jesus cannot, of course," says O. Holtzmann, 

^ Harnack, op. cit., pp. 148-149. 



228 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

" have drawn, all at once, all the conclusions involved 
in His Messianic belief; and yet, the force of the new 
revelation was so overpowering as assuredly to have 
left Him no peace until He had reflected upon it and 
recognized it in all the fulness of its meaning. . . . 
Jesus Himself told His disciples about it in the story 
of His temptation. . . . We may be sure that what 
most exercised Him now, in the depths of His soul, 
was the great promise connected with the name of the 
Messiah : ' Thou wilt be the Lord of this world.' . . . 
He had now to reconcile the consciousness of His 
duty toward God with the persuasion, freshly awak- 
ened in His soul, that He was the Messiah." ^ 

In Wendt's estimation, "it is perfectly conceivable 
that Jesus, after this sudden and miraculous imparta- 
tion of the knowledge of His Messiahship, was as- 
sailed with conflicting doubts, and that He felt it an 
urgent duty, founded on His Messianic endowments, 
to bring this conflict to an immediate and decisive 
issue. ... It was no conflict against images and 
ideals, arising out of a wicked and selfish and un- 
godly disposition and inclination in Jesus Himself. 
We must surely repudiate the idea of a temptation 
originating in the state of Jesus' own heart. But there 
were Messianic conceptions and ideals which hitherto 
approached Him from without, that is, from the pre- 
vailing views and traditions of His countrymen, and 
which now entered His soul, in the sense of their being 
known to Him, and being images in His mind without 
needing any external means of representation. They 
represented themselves to Him with a plausible ap- 
pearance of being true and Scriptural, and through 
such plausibility they became veritable temptations 
which it cost Him a struggle to overcome. Yet, in 
examining them. He perceived the impious principles 
on which they were based, and, to that extent, regarded 

1 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., pp. 138, 143. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



229 



i 



and treated them as temptations of Satan. . . . 
Thenceforth, from this moment, He no longer knew 
of perplexity nor doubt. . . . Henceforth, He could 
undertake His public ministry with an invincible con- 
viction of His Messiahship, with a marvelous clear- 
ness of view, and a remarkable firmness of feeling, 
touching the Kingdom of God." ^ 

Similarly, B. Weiss supposes that the evil sugges- 
tions against which the Saviour struggled represent, 
not His own present convictions, nor His personal 
desires or inclinations, but ideas and images to which 
He was a stranger. He believes that Jesus entered 
the desert purposely to ascertain the divinely ordained 
means for the accomplishment of His mission 
which were destined to determine His course of pro- 
cedure after He had clearly discerned the divine will 
in His regard. He says that during such reflexions, 
He necessarily perceived that tableau of the Messianic 
ideal which stood opposed to the divine plan ; that this 
view of the earthly and unhallowed means which 
might lead Him onward to attain His purpose arose, 
not from the carnal source of His personal feelings, 
but simply from the outer world ; and that, despite the 
seductive power that vision could exert over His 
natural senses, over the world of sense, Jesus deemed 
it a Satanic illusion which sought to have Him aban- 
don the path willed for Him by God.^ 

Harnack, too, is satisfied with remarking that '' the 
Evangelists preface their account of His public activity 
with a curious story of a temptation. This story as- 
sumes that He was already conscious of being the Son 
of God, and the one who was entrusted with the mis- 
sion of fulfilling God's promises to His people."^ 

1 Wendt, op. cit., pp. 98, 102. 

2 Weiss, B., op. cit., vol. i (German ed.,pp.3i5, 316). 
^ Harnack, op. cit., pp. 148, 149. 



230 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

These critics, however cautious in referring to the 
changing view which Jesus had of His Messianic mis- 
sion during His hfe, are still more so when describing 
the alleged evolution in the Saviour's ideas about His 
suffering, destiny and death. 

Thus, Wendt says that Stapfer's conclusions on this 
point are not at all warranted by the Gospel data. 
" How this knowledge," he writes, " was gradually de- 
veloped in Him, we cannot now circumstantially trace, 
since our sources do not afford the material for it." 
Wendt's theory is that the Saviour had been, from the 
first, convinced that He had to sacrifice His life for 
the sake of the Kingdom, but that, from the exigencies 
of circumstances and events, He learned how and 
when He was to make this sacrifice. " From the fact 
that Jesus, publicly and for the first time, spoke of His 
sufferings and death after Peter's confession, it does 
not follow that He, then for the first time, became 
aware of the suffering destiny which laid in store for 
Him. On the contrary, the firmness with which He 
asserts the necessity of His fate and rebukes Peter 
who had contradicted Him, is a proof that He had 
already triumphed over the trial brought about by this 
prospect of Messianic suffering. How and when did 
the thought of His passion first enter His mind? Was 
it at the very beginning of His public ministry? Or, 
did the thought occur to Him later on, as an abso- 
lutely new intellectual element? It would be wrong, 
I think, to accept this alternative as the only possible 
hypothesis. Even granting that Jesus became con- 
scious of the proximity of His violent death only dur- 
ing the course of His ministry, this idea of coming 
sufferings was not necessarily something altogether 
new and foreign to His usual thoughts. It may have 
been simply the normal outcome of these fundamental 
ideas which, since He had become conscious of His 
Messiahship, were a part of the essential convictions 
of Jesus. And that such was the fact we must of 



THE MESSIAXIC MINISTRY 



231 



necessity admit, if we wish to give, of the origin of 
that thought, a satisfactory psychological explanation, 
in keeping with the data of evangelical tradition. . . . 
Abnegation and sufferings, connected with His par- 
ticular vocation, must have appeared to Him, from 
the beginning, as a necessity to which He had to sub- 
mit through love for God and for the sake of men's 
salvation. But it was only by degrees, during the 
course of His ministry, that His various experiences 
made Him realize the precise nature and the special 
intensity of the sorrows which, in fact, fell to His lot. 
. . . The knowledge must have been forced upon 
Him with increasing clearness, that He could not 
hope for a peaceful, regular expansion of His teach- 
ing and of the establishment of the Kingdom of 
God thereby; but that, on the contrary, fearful con- 
flicts and persecutions lay before Him, and that His 
hfe must be vielded up in the cause of the Kingdom 
of God." ^ 

On this point, the opinion of B. Weiss does not ap- 
parently dift'er from that of Wendt. " It is impos- 
sible to prove," he writes, " that Jesus had ever re- 
ferred directly to His death before the episode at 
Csesarea Philippi. ... It by no means follows from 
this that the thought of death had only recently oc- 
curred to Jesus. . . . The knowledge Jesus had of 
His coming fate was not merely owing to human prog- 
nostication or foresight ; it rested upon God-given 
certitude which could never fail Him who, from His 
baptism, had been the subject of the constant opera- 
tion of the divine Spirit. But, even this foreknowledge 
was governed by the fundamental law of all prophetic 
prediction. ... It was, therefore, only possible for 
Jesus to infer the necessity of His death according to 
the degree in which the event was made inevitable 
by its historic preparation. . . . The necessity of His 

1 Wendt, op. cit., p. 219. 



232 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

death He learnt from the development of the histor- 
ical circumstances, and this not because He had 
hitherto been blinded to it, but only because the de- 
velopment of events now brought it about." ^ 

'' Jesus believes that He is the Messiah," says O. 
Holtzmann. " But He knows that when He intro- 
duces the Kingdom of God, the Messiah will come on 
the clouds of heaven. Consequently, before He Him- 
self can thus appear in His glory. He must first be 
raised up to God. Whether He believed, from the 
very beginning, that this would be effected by His 
death, we do not know. At any rate, the contrast 
between His situation at the moment of speaking and 
the future glory He hoped for, must have been also 
instrumental in leading Him to beheve that the com- 
ing of the Kingdom of God, despite its nearness, was 
not an event that would happen entirely without di- 
rect cause." 2 

No less explicit, it would seem, is Harnack's con- 
demnation of Stapfer's fanciful conjecture. He con- 
siders it probable that, during the course of His public 
ministry, Jesus felt obliged to modify His views of 
the nature of His Messianic position and destiny ; but 
maintains that the fact itself cannot be settled from 
historical data. " Unless all appearances are decep- 
tive," he says, " no stormy crisis, no breach with His 
past, lies behind the period of Jesus' Hfe that we know. 
. . . Everything seems to pour from Him naturally, 
as though it could not do otherwise, like a spring from 
the depths of the earth, clear and unchecked in its 
flow. We see a man who, at the age of thirty, has 
apparently never known these inner struggles, after 
which He would have burned what He once adored 
and adored what He burned! We see a man who 
has broken with his past in order to summon others to 

^ Weiss, B., op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 64, 65, 66, 6y, 
^ Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 180, 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 233 

repentance and yet never speaks of his own conver- 
sion! This consideration makes it impossible that 
His life could have been spent in inner conflict, al- 
though He had His share of deep emotions, tempta- 
tions and doubts." 

Loisy. — Such is the stand taken by various classes 
of Protestant critics who believe in Christ and thus 
draw the Hne between themselves and pronounced in- 
fidels. To be sure, the Christ whom they revere is 
more or less human, and their tendency is to exalt 
His human character at the expense of His divine per- 
sonality and nature. 

A theory, however, very similar to that held by the 
foregoing critics was advanced by Loisy, who some- 
time ago was ranked among Catholic scholars. He 
contended that " the critic may conjecture that in 
Jesus the filial sentiment preceded and prepared the 
way for the consciousness of being the Messiah, as 
His soul was elevated by prayer, confidence, and 
love to the highest degree of union with God, till the 
idea of His vocation as the Messiah came quite natur- 
ally to crown the travail of His spirit." ^ 

He does not agree, indeed, with those who ascribe 
the source of Jesus' conviction of His Messiahship at 
the time of His baptism; but he does claim that only 
then did the Saviour become fully aware of His Mes- 
sianic position and destiny.^ 

" There may be," he says, " some conventional 
features in the account of the Baptism ; but this 
record, at least, proves that the oldest tradition 
assigned to this event the origin of Jesus' full reali- 
zation and possession of His role. Why not place the 
development of the Messianic consciousness before 
the Baptism?" This event, thinks Loisy, must have 
marked " a decisive moment in the Saviour's career " ; 

1 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 35-36, 150. 

2 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 105. 



234 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

it " may have had a decisive influence upon the de- 
velopment of His Messianic consciousness," inas- 
much as " the Baptism marks an important date for 
Jesus Himself as regards His interior development 
and not only as regards the exterior manifestation of 
His divine life. . . . According to the Synoptics, Jesus 
of Nazareth, having become aware of His providential 
mission, began to preach." ^ 

He further suggests that, if the Saviour was fully 
aware of His Messianic character from the beginning 
of His pubUc life, nevertheless, it was during the 
course of His ministry, that the special form of His 
Messianic role became precisely defined in His mind. 

"A perusal of the Synoptics," he says, " makes it 
clear that Jesus does not, at first, publicly proclaim 
Himself as the Messiah, and that He did not even de- 
clare Himself such to His disciples: He allowed their 
faith in Him to shape itself slowly. We may even 
say that His consciousness of His mission is devel- 
oped in Him and that His attitude towards the people 
and towards His disciples bore a relation to the in- 
terior progress of His ideas and of His designs." H 
Jesus was aware of His Messianic vocation be- 
fore S. Peter's confession, '' it is evident that the 
special form of His role was at that time defined in 
His mind, and that the idea of the Kingdom was 
uppermost in His thoughts before that event." ^ 

Loisy, finally, seems to admit that the Saviour, dur- 
ing His ministry and owing to the influence of events, 
had become aware of His suffering destiny. " Jesus 
knew," he says, " that He was to bear the gospel to 
Jerusalem ; but His experience in Galilee warns Him 
of the sad outcome which that necessary step may 
have: He follows the law of His destiny." We will 

^ Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 301 ; The Gospel and the 
Church, p. 104; Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1904, p. 91; Le Quatr, 
Evang., pp. 71, 233. 

^ Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., pp, 69, 252, 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 235 

see later on how the same critic is forced to cast 
aside the very texts which prove that Jesus had an 
early foresight of His death. ^ 

Criticism: The Public Life. —What then shall 
we say .of the variously shaded theories advanced by 
the foregoing critics of the Protestant liberal school, 
as also of the more moderate views of Loisy? With 
the gospels as a basis, can we decide upon any par- 
ticular moment in Jesus' life as the starting-point of 
His Messianic consciousness? Is this latter convic- 
tion strictly derivable from His consciousness of be- 
ing the Son of God? And, further, to what extent 
may we reasonably admit a real evolution in the 
manner in which the Saviour viewed His destiny as 
the Messiah? The solution of these questions neces- 
sarily implies an impartial examination of the Gospel 
account. Whoever studies this matter carefully, 
therefore, will find in the following considerations 
ample evidence for the desired answer to the above- 
mentioned questions. 

The Gospel record of Jesus' statements do not, first 
of all, betray any sort of evolution in His ideas of 
His position as Messiah or of the destiny awaiting 
Him as Messiah. 

During the closing year of His public ministry, in 
fact, this matter is beyond doubt. A survey of the 
whole series of His definite declarations during this 
part of His career shows that His assertions were 
constantly uniform. From His reply at S. Peter's 
confession to His last avowals before the Sanhedrin, 
He expresses His mind most plainly and firmly, with 
the utmost calmness and self-possession. Jesus con- 
siders Himself the Messiah, that Messiah who is 
destined to suffer and die in fulfilment of the pro- 
phecies, and who shall come at the end of time to 
judge all mankind and to inaugurate the eternal reign 
of God. 

^ Lpisy, Autour d'un Petit Livre, p. 89, 



236 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

If, then, during the first two years of His ministry, 
Jesus' discretion was so marked ahke in positively 
reveaUng His position as Messiah as also in expressly 
announcing the role which He was to subsequently 
play as the Messiah, His motives for such reserve were 
quite other than ignorance of mind or uncertainty of 
ideas. Whoever cares to find an exact explanation for 
the Saviour's attitude will assuredly conclude that 
His reserve was prompted only, as His wisdom dic- 
tated, by His hearers' mental and moral dispositions 
and by the need of fulfilling a providential design. 

The Messianic Vocation. — Jesus was neverthe- 
less aware of His Messianic caUing even from the be- 
ginning of His ministry, however cautious He may 
have been in its manifestation, as is granted by Pro- 
testant critics and by Loisy. But, despite His re- 
serve, what right have we to deny that, thenceforth, 
He was fully aware of His destiny as Messiah, and 
that His idea of His Messianic position was complete ? 
It is a very gratuitous assumption to say that His pru- 
dent, discretion indicates His ignorance of one or other 
point of His destiny, or that His ideas of His Mes- 
siahship underwent a process of real development and 
change. He could manifest His ideas progressively, 
according as outward circumstances demanded, by 
accommodating Himself to the views of His follow- 
ers. As He had plainly done so as regards His es- 
sential dignity of Son of God, He might also do so in 
the case of His special character of Messiah. But, 
again, in this matter, the gospel texts do not warrant 
us in supposing that, strictly speaking. His conscious- 
ness experienced a development. 

Stapfer thinks that the temptation of Jesus occupied 
a longer time than is mentioned in the gospels, and 
that it was really a soul-struggle against the prejudices 
of His earlier training in regard to the temporal sover- 
eignty of the Messiah. But this is merely a personal 
interpretation which may well be called arbitrary and 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 237 

fantastic. The Gospels do not at all warrant in sup- 
posing that Jesus' temptation lasted a long while, and 
that the Saviour was throughout its duration engaged 
in struggling with the temptation. Above all, there 
is naught to support the theory of an inner struggle, 
properly speaking, between erroneous personal ideas 
and the new revelation of His Messianic calling. 

This theory, first of all, contradicts all that is stated 
about the preaching of S. John the Baptist prior to 
Christ's baptism and temptation. The Messiah whom 
John announces is by no means the earthly king of 
false Jewish hopes. As O. Holtzmann says, " John 
describes the Messiah as being, above all things else, 
the judge of the world." In no wise is John the herald 
of an earthly sovereignty; for he dwells in solitude, 
and proclaims the approach of judgment. As a pre- 
paration for the Messiah's advent, he urges the prac- 
tice of penance, of which his special kind of baptism 
is the symbol, and he also inculcates holiness and 
charity. " We should also have heard something 
about political hopes being associated with the advent 
of the Baptist," says O. Holtzmann, '' but of this 
there is not a single word." ^ 

On the other hand, the Synoptic account, to con- 
sider only the fact of the temptation, clearly proves 
that it proceeded from without, and, as is rightly ad- 
mitted even by Wendt and B. Weiss, the Saviour's 
soul betrays not the slightest sign of disturbance. 
While Sanday says that '' there did not enter into His 
mind even a passing shadow of the ambition which 
marked the best of earthly conquerors. He was de- 
termined not to minister in the least to the national 
pride of the Jews." ^ 

That Jesus was really tempted by the devil is un- 
doubtedly denied by Wendt and B. Weiss, and appar- 

1 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 122. 

2 Sanday, art. : Jesus Christ, H. D., p. 612. 



238 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ently even by Loisy; for they say that the temptation 
was rather a symbol of His changing ideas when con- 
sidering the ways and means of achieving His divine 
mission. But it is still true that these critics deny 
that any substantial change of views could have oc- 
curred in the Saviour's mind, as a result of the temp- 
tation. As we have seen, it is far better to take the 
gospel account of this episode as it stands. ^ 

The Passion. — That Jesus originally hoped to real- 
ize the Messianic Kingdom without having to suffer 
and die, and that He became aware of the necessity 
of His death only when facing the ever-increasing 
hatred of the Pharisees, — such is a further view taken 
by Stapfer who follows in the lead of Renan. This 
position, like his other one given above, is not based 
upon facts. Jesus, indeed, after S. Peter's confes- 
sion, often refers to His death and shows that He 
knows exactly the circumstances of its occurrence. 
His remarks do not at all refer to His experience of 
the Pharisees' hostility, nor, in fact, do the texts allow 
us to suppose such an allusion. If it is at this precise 
moment in His ministry that Jesus begins to speak 
pubhcly about the last days of the world, His motive 
for so doing must be found in the general method 
that guided His manifestations. Naught was further 
from the minds of the Apostles than the thought of the 
sufferings of the Messiah; naught more opposed to 
their ordinary way of thinking than the prospect of 
the crucifixion. Thus it is that the predictions relat- 
ing to that great scandal. His death, are withheld by 
the Saviour until the moment when the faith of His 
disciples seems finally assured and firm. And it is 
also remarkable to see how, after the event at 
Caesarea, each clearer manifestation of His Messianic 
dignity is accompanied by a more explicit announce- 
ment of His death. 

^ Cf. Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 90, n. i, E. tr., p. 142. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 239 

Note the gradation : At the opening of His ministry, 
the simple announcement of His violent removal ; at 
Caesarea Philippi, and in Galilee, a more detailed 
announcement of His rejection by the religious au- 
thorities, of His crucifixion, and of His resurrection 
of the third day; at the close of His final preaching 
tour, a very minute prediction of the treason that will 
serve to deliver Him over to the Jewish rulers, of His 
condemnation, of the Gentiles' execution of that 
sentence, of the mockeries, spitting, and buffeting, and, 
finally, of His death and resurrection. 

There is a sort of compensation made between the 
new splendor of His Messiahship and the dark vision 
of His approaching crucifixion ; between the dreadful 
trial which His passion shall prove to be the faith of 
His disciples, and the assurance which His words and 
deeds give that He is truly the Messiah Founder of 
God's Kingdom. On the other hand, such was the 
Saviour's view at this time, such the conviction and 
certitude with which He announced His destiny, that 
His judgment on this matter seemed to be already 
settled, or, rather, appeared not so much as a conviction 
acquired by ordinary experience, as a kind of super- 
natural assurance which He had from the first. 

The three Synoptics, moreover, assign to Jesus a de- 
claration, uttered at the beginning of His ministry, 
and prudently but precisely alluding to His separation 
from His friends by death. "The day will come,' 
He says, " when the Bride-groom shall be taken away 
from them; and then they shall fast in those days." 
His assertion, given as a parable, as also its close 
connection with the context and with His other sayings, 
which are surely authentic, would seem to guarantee 
its authenticity in the fullest historical sense. ^ 

Hence, as we think, the views of Stapfer and Renan 
are formally opposed to history. Harnack rightly 

1 Mk. ii. 19-20; Mt. ix. 15; Lk. v. 34, 35. 



240 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

recognizes this fact ; he says that " no stormy crisis, 
no breach with His past, hes behind the period of 
Jesus' hfe that we know. . . . Everything seems to 
pour from Him naturally, as though it could not do 
otherwise, like a spring from the depths of the earth, 
clear and unchecked in its flow. . . . This considera- 
tion makes it impossible that His life could have been 
spent in inner conflict." ^ 

Says Loisy, following Jtilicher : " The allusion to 
the Children of the Marriage who shall fast when the 
Bridegroom shall be taken away, is simply presented 
as an allegory. But, if Jesus styled Himself the 
Bridegroom, His argument would have no proving 
force ; He would have merely meant that His disciples 
could not fast while He was with them. Originally, 
the reply seems to have been: the Children of the 
Marriage cannot fast while they are feasting with the 
Bridegroom. Should the Bridegroom be suddenly 
taken away, the feast would be over, and His com- 
panions troubled; thus the Baptist's disciples fast, as 
their master is gone; while those of Jesus do not 
fast, since they still have Him with them." ^ 

Evidently, this interpretation is forced, its author 
endeavoring by every means to exclude from Jesus' 
teaching and to ascribe to later tradition whatever is 
presented in the form of allegory. But, even if thus 
interpreted, the Saviour's reply plainly alludes to His 
departure. The comparison drawn from the Children 
of the Marriage, if applied to the disciples of Christ 
and of John, would make the Bridegroom's removal 
refer to His own sudden and violent departure as 
also to that of His precursor. That Jesus did not 
merely utter this parable in a very general sense, as is 
alleged, but wished to represent Himself, by recourse 

1 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 35-36. 

2 Loisy, Etudes Evang., 1902, p. 43, n. i ; Rev. d'Hist., etc., 
1903* p. 519; art.: Le Second Evang.; Jiilicher, Die Gleich- 
nisreden Jesu, 1899, vol. ii, p. 188. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



241 



to a sort of veiled allegory, as the Bridegroom, and 
to afford a real glimpse of His crucifixion, is indicated 
by His use of the future tense, so similar to the " pro- 
phetic " future and which an a priori interpretation 
alone could ascribe to the Gospel editors : " The days 
will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken away 
.from them, and then they shall fast in those days." ^ 

In Schmidt's opinion, Jesus' warning is as "clearly a 
vaticinium ex eventu as the words concerning the 
garments and the wineskins are unmistakably genu- 
ine." But why so? For the very- reason that a 
Rationalist could not logically admit that Jesus had 
such an early foresight of His death.^ 

As to the more moderate theory of those who claim 
that Jesus, at an early period, foresaw His death in 
a general way, and that He became aware of it only 
by degrees, according to events, special conditions, and 
certain circumstances, we think it is based rather upon a 
philosophical a priori view than upon a fully scientific 
study of the texts. The Gospels, indeed, present the 
Saviour as revealing slowly and progressively to His 
disciples the sad prospect of His death, but they 
do not at all imply that this succession and progress 
noticeable in His predictions also affected His inner 
knowledge and His personal intentions. On the con- 
trary, it is plain that, after S. Peter's confession, Jesus 
very minutely predicted His ignominious Passion, His 
death upon the cross, and His resurrection on the 
third day. Surely, Jesus could not have acquired 
such foresight from mere experience. Why then 
should we place in dependence upon human conditions 
what is evidently of the supernatural and divine 
order of things? 

The full authenticity of these Gospel passages, how- 

1 The Greek term for " shall be taken away suddenly " is 
airapdy-^ Lagrange, Rev. Bib., April, 1903, p. 307. 

2 Schmidt, art.: The Son of Man, E. B., par. 46, col. 4739; 
Holtzmann, O., Synoptiker, 3d ed., p. 55. 

16 



242 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ever, is disputed by Wrede, Loisy, and the like critics. 
Loisy thinks that if " after S. Peter's confession, Jesus 
is thought to have conversed often with His disciples 
about the destiny awaiting Him as the Messiah," the 
general statement of these discourses is based ''upon 
accomplished facts and upon the theme of the early 
Christian preaching. ... If He predicts His passion 
and resurrection, it is because He was in possession 
of His future by a sure prevision." Such, indeed, 
is the Gospel testimony; but Loisy classes it among 
the " interpretations of primitive facts and real events 
which assume a new aspect in the perspective of the 
Messianic glory." In particular, this would be an in- 
terpretation which later tradition elaborated from the 
authentic saying in Math. x. 39. He does not deny 
that, in a general way, the Saviour foresaw His death, 
and admits as authentic a saying which all three 
Synoptics refer to the episode at Caesarea Philippi. 
Jesus, he writes, '' had admitted the necessity, both for 
Himself and for His followers, of losing His Hfe 
in time in order to gain it for eternity." What reason, 
then, has he to cast suspicion upon the very details 
and circumstances found in the text? He seems to 
argue from a preconceived opinion and not from an 
impartial analysis of the texts. We may remark, too, 
that the sentence in question occurs not only in S. 
Matthew's account of the great discourse relating to 
the first mission of the Apostles, but is also given by 
the three Synoptics after S. Peter's confession.^ 

Loisy also claims that " the prophecies of the pas- 
sion and resurrection are not formulated in Jesus' 
discourse," that they do not present " any saying form- 
ally retained as the saying of the Lord." His view is 
utterly wrong. The prediction, indeed, is given by 
the three Synoptics as a direct discourse which Christ 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 100; Rev. d'Hist.. 
I903» P- 297; The Gospel and the Church, p. 40; Mk. viii. 35; 
Mt. xvi. 25 ; Lk. ix. 24 ; cf. Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 201 ; 
Engl, tr, 246. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



243 



delivered on His last journey to Jerusalem. As to 
His declaration at Caesarea Philippi, and in Galilee, 
a comparison of the Gospel narratives justifies the 
conclusion that the sacred writers also intended to 
present these statements as being substantially the very 
words of Jesus.^ 

Why, we may ask, should the Saviour's genuine 
thought be less exactly reproduced through indirect 
discourse? Surely, an explicit announcement is im- 
plied in that spontaneous outburst of S. Peter : '' Lord, 
far be it from Thee; this shall not be unto Thee!" 
Nor will we be apt to ascribe to tradition that atti- 
tude of S. Peter which drew this stern rebuke from 
Jesus : " Get thee behind me, Satan, because thou 
savourest not the things that are of God, but that are 
of men." And the repeated remarks, the sense of 
which Jesus' disciples did not at first perceive, while 
they retained the words without comprehending them ; 
for they wondered what He really meant thereby; 
their great sadness in feeling the presentiment of an 
unknown evil ; their dread to ask the Master about the 
matter; — are not all these observations taken from 
real life and in admirable correspondence with the 
true state of the Apostles' own minds rather than 
with the endeavors of the early Church? Must we 
not, therefore, perceive therein a valuable guarantee 
of their authenticity ? ^ 

1 Mk. X. 33-34; Mt. XX. 18-19; Lk. xviii. 31-33; cf. Lk. xvii. 
25. Note that the conjunction "that" (ort) precedes the 
present tense of the verb ^£i, thus: Mk. viii. 31 {otl del)-, 
Mt. xvi. 21 ; Lk. ix. 22. In Mk. ix. 9 it is iva . . . . ; Mt. xvii. 
19 (direct discourse) ; Mk. ix. 30 has on , , . , -^ Mt. xvii. 21-22 
(direct discourse) ; Lk. ix. 44 (direct discourse emphasized 
by the forewarning: "Lay up in your hearts these words"). 
Note, too, the significant remark in Mk. viii. 32 : " And He 
spoke the word openly " ; and that the conjunction " that " 
{oTi) does not necessarily imply indirect discourse, but is 
often used to introduce direct discourse. Cf. Mk. vi. 2^ ', 
viii. 4; X. 33; xii. 19; Mt. vii. 22,; xvi. 26; xxvi. yi, 74; xxvii. 
43; Lk. i. 61; ii. 23; iv. 43; xv. 27. 

- Mk. viii. 33; Mt. xvi. 22,; Mk. ix. 9; Mk. ix. 31; Mt. xvii. 
22; Lk. ix. 45; xviii. 34. 



244 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

In Wrede's opinion, the Apostles' alleged failure 
to understand these words of Christ was itself a con- 
viction in S. Mark's mind. He might also say the 
same for SS. Matthew and Luke. He thinks that 
it is meant to serve as an explanation of the fact that 
Jesus was not recognized as the Messiah before His 
resurrection despite the Messianic declarations 
ascribed to Him later.^ 

Loisy says that '' what is said of the Apostles' lack 
of understandmg may almost mean what is asserted 
by Wrede, namely, that only after the resurrection did 
they perceive things of which they could not have 
previously doubted." But, from what we have seen, 
we can judge what should be thought of this in- 
genious, but fanciful, theory.^ 

We may conclude, then, that from the standpoint of 
exegetical criticism there is no warrant for the theory 
of any evolution-process in the Messianic conscious- 
ness during the course of Jesus' ministry. The pro- 
posed hypotheses on the subject proceed rather from 
philosophy than from exegesis. In face of the Gos- 
pel texts they are but clever attempts at psycholog- 
ical reconstruction, and tend to reproduce, in a con- 
jectural way, the mode in which the phenomenon of 
His consciousness would act if it were to follow the 
ordinary laws of the human soul : they are not based 
upon facts. 

The Baptism. — The hypotheses which seek to 
explain the origin of Messianic consciousness have 
no firmer basis than the others previously discussed. 
It is useless to assign its origin to the baptism of 
Jesus. Thus, O. Holtzmann asserts that the Saviour, 
in receiving the Baptism of Penance, thought Himself 
an ordinary sinner who was called to membership in 
the Kingdom of God, but who never imagined that He 

^ Wrede, op. cit., 1901. 

2 Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., etc., 1903, p. 297. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 245 

would become its Founder. But we know that the 
whole career of Jesus stands as a solid argument 
against such an interpretation. How so? Because 
His very method in calling others to holiness ; the as- 
surance with He proclaims Himself as the Mediator 
for attaining to God and obtaining the Kingdom; the 
power which He assumes to pardon sinners Himself, 
to compel men to leave all things that they may follow 
Him, to pass supreme judgment upon the living and 
the dead ; — all this, along with the incomparable moral 
perfection visible alike in His conduct as in His words, 
utterly dispels the idea that He could ever have thought 
Himself to be a sinner. 

What, indeed, can preclude the existence of that 
intimate, deep, and unique union which Jesus knew 
that He had with His father? Stapfer calls it "a 
union with God which nothing in the past had ever 
troubled, and which nothing troubled in the present. 
. . . This is why we defined as holiness His perfect 
union with God, His constant and inalterable feeling 
of the entire approval of Him whom He called the 
Father ; in a word, the consciousness of a cloudless in- 
tegrity. . . . He was sure of Himself, sure of God, 
sure of His own hoHness. His soul bore no scars, 
for it had never received a wound, never suffered a 
moral defeat. ... It is impossible to prove directly 
His perfect holiness ; but it can be proved that He al- 
ways had a consciousness of integrity, and that He 
was never known to repent." ^ 

As Harnack well says : " Where shall we find the 
man who has broken with His past in order to sum- 
mon others to repentance, but who, through it all, 
never speaks of His own repentance ? " ^ 

The foregoing theory might be intelligible enough if 
it were true that, during His earthly career, Jesus 

1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ Before His Ministry, pp. 162, 165, 
166. 

2 Harnack, What is Christianity f p. ^6, 



246 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

was aware of His role as the atoning victim for sin 
and the world's Redeemer. That He was so convinced 
seems to follow not only from the Fourth Gospel, but 
also from the text of S. Mark's gospel and from the 
Synoptic accounts of the Last Supper. S. Mark says 
that '' the Son of Man is come to minister and to 
give His life as a redemption for many." ^ 

The authenticity of the Synoptic accounts of the 
Last Supper is admitted by O. Holtzmann, Stapfer, 
Harnack, B. Weiss, and Wendt. It is, therefore, only 
mere prejudice that could lead Loisy to assert that 
these very accounts '' have all come more or less under 
the influence of the PauHne theology." And he also 
says that " it seems certain that, if Christ did not an- 
nounce His death in the precise terms of the Gospel 
tradition. He nevertheless proved it and gave to it a 
meaning conformable with the general significance 
which He gave to His mission." ^ 

The fact is, we think, that the theology of the early 
Church is appreciable only in the light of the Saviour's 
own declarations whereby it was assuredly influenced. 
For instance, although unquestionably authentic, we 
cannot appreciate the fact of the institution of the 
Holy Eucharist apart from the idea of sacrifice which 
so completely pervades it. And does not the idea of 
the Redemption, moreover, undoubtedly arise from the 
historic, yet appealing accounts of Jesus' sufferings? 
" In His sorrows," says Loisy, " we feel that there is 
something divine which uplifts Him above even the 
best of mankind." If, then, Jesus had ever felt 
Himself obliged to do penance and to repent, He 
would hardly have assumed such a position before 
God and men.^ 

1 Mk. X. 45; Mk. X. 24; Mt. xxvi. 28; Lk. xxii. 19 and 20; 
cf. I Cor. xi. 24-25. 

2 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 365, Ger. ed. ; Stapfer, Jesus 
Christ During His Ministry, p. 265; Harnack, op. cit., p. 170; 
Weiss, B., op. cit., vol. iii. p. 195; Wendt, op. cit., p. 505, 
Ger. ed. ; Loisy, op. cit., p. 80 ; Rev. d'Hist., 1902, p. 175. 

3 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 38. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 247 

S. Matthew's account of Jesus' baptism, indeed, sug- 
gests another reason for His manner of acting on that 
solemn occasion than the one mentioned by O. Holtz- 
mann. We are told "that when John the Baptist be- 
held Jesus among the crowd of penitents, he per- 
sistently declined to baptize One by whom he should 
be baptized and the latchet of whose shoes he felt 
himself unworthy to loose. " Suffer it to be so now," 
replies the Saviour ; " for so it becometh us to ful- 
fill all justice." This reply is of such a kind, indeed, 
that we cannot assign it to the influence of a later 
Gospel tradition. We should probably look for a 
reply which would involve a different meaning, were 
we to seek to reconcile the idea implied in the baptism 
of penance with what might be thought derogatory to 
the holiness of the Messiah. Jesus prudently acknowl- 
edges the Baptist's astonishment as legitimate, and 
shows that He wants to freely submit to a baptism 
which was not really meant for Him. So that, if He 
actually does receive this baptism, it is because, as He 
says, " it becometh us to fulfill all justice." ^ 

What is really meant? Wendt thinks that the bap- 
tism administered by John was not so much the re- 
nouncement of sin as the direction of one's Hfe to- 
wards a perfect fulfilment of God's will ; and that it 
is thus plain how, Jesus in spite of, or rather owing to 
His deep yearnings for a filial obedience to the divine 
will, felt Himself impelled to receive this baptism.^ 

Another motive for Jesus' procedure is suggested 
by B. Weiss, who says : " The symbolism of baptism 
manifestly referred to the complete conclusion of the 
life up to that point, and to the commencement of a 
new Hfe of a totally different nature. To the sinful 
people it formed the conclusion of their Hfe of sin, and 
the beginning of a new one that was free from sin. 
... It could not be all this to Him who was without 

1 Mt. iii. 15. ? Wendt, op. cit., p. 100. 



248 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

spot; but for Him, too, it marked the close of His 
former life, and the commencement of one perfectly 
new ; the new life to which He emerged did not differ 
from the earlier one by reason of its sinlessness, but 
only by its being dedicated from that time forward to 
His great divine calling." ^ And, if we would believe 
Sanday, it was "the inauguration of a new phase in 
the accomplishment of His mission." ^ 

The attitude of Jesus, indeed, is easily explained if 
we admit that, in seeking baptism. He realized Him- 
self to be the " Lamb of God " who bore the sins of 
the world in order that He might expiate for them 
through His sufferings and death. This idea is im- 
plied in the account given in the Fourth Gospel, and 
it is evidently adapted fully to the Synoptic texts. If, 
at the baptism, Jesus desired to offer publicly, and in 
some sort officially, this self-oblation as the victim for 
sin, — such is the role that the Epistle to the Hebrews 
assigns to Him from the first moment of His earthly 
life, — we can readily understand the words of the 
heavenly Father who recognized His inward holiness 
and His outward acts of penance when He said : " This 
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." 

The submission of Jesus to the baptism of John is, 
therefore, explained quite otherwise than by supposing 
that He intended to do penance for His own sins, 
since this would be incompatible with His conscious- 
ness of His Messiahship. O. Holtzmann, however, 
whom Stapfer and Wendt also follow, alleges a new 
reason in behalf of his hypothesis. These critics say 
that the baptism, thus prominently placed as the cul- 
minating point in Christ's life and the beginning of 
His entire ministry, must have played a decisive part 
in the formation of His ideas about His mission ; more- 
over, the vision which accompanied it was apparently 

^ Weiss, B., op. cit., col. i, p. 323. 

2 Sanday, art. ; Jesus Christ, H. D., p. 61 1, 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 249 

meant only for the Saviour, and hence must be con- 
sidered, it would seem, in relation to His own soul. 

But this interpretation also hardly bears out several 
important facts that may be mentioned. Is it, in- 
deed, quite certain that the miraculous incident of the 
vision was witnessed by none except Jesus? The 
Synoptics simply relate the Saviour's vision, but with- 
out specifying that it was intended only for Him. 
S. Matthew's account rather implies the Baptist was 
a witness of this miracle : '' John stayed Him, saying : 
I ought to be baptized by Thee, and, comest Thou to 
me? And Jesus, answering, said to him: Suffer it to 
be so now. For so it becometh us to fulfill all justice. 
Then He suffered him. And Jesus, being baptized, 
forthwith came out of the water: and lo, the heavens 
were opened to Him; and He saw the Spirit of God 
descending as a dove, and coming upon Him. And 
behold, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my be- 
loved Son, in whom I am well pleased." The pres- 
ence of John, in fact, is expressly stated in the Fourth 
Gospel : ''And John gave testimony, saying, I saw the 
Spirit coming down, as a dove, from heaven, and He 
remained upon Him. . . . And I saw, and I gave testi- 
mony that this is the Son of God." ^ 

In this hypothesis, admitted by B. Weiss and San- 
day, the miraculous apparition and voice would have 
been made, at least partially, in order to proclaim the 
public manifestation of Jesus as Messiah. Thus, B. 
Weiss alludes to Mt. iii. 14 which represents John as 
being aware of Jesus' Messiahship, and also to the im- 
personal character of the words in verse 17: This is 
my beloved Son. " It is beyond doubt," he says, " that 
the oldest form of the tradition told of a vision in 
which the Baptist had a share." While Sanday says : 
" We are not obliged to choose between the Synoptic 
and the Johannine account of the witnesses of the 

iMt. iii. 14; Jo. i. Z2, 34. 



250 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

supernatural signs. The two accounts may be re- 
garded as complementary rather than contradictory." ^ 

Moreover, if the vision and the voice were meant 
only for Jesus, they might have, even for Him, a 
meaning quite different from the one alleged by the 
critics quoted above. In these events we may really 
perceive the providential sign which Christ was await- 
ing before entering upon His ministry, the visible 
manifestation of His Father's will that He should be- 
gin His career as Messiah. Nay, we may actually 
perceive therein the official consecration, as it were, 
of the Saviour for His work, His solemn and most 
special investiture by the Holy Spirit for His destined 
mission. Not, indeed, that hitherto He was deprived 
of the Holy Spirit, but that, in His humble, retired 
Hfe at Nazareth, the Spirit had not, seemingly, acted 
in and through Him as it was to do later in so striking 
and unusual a manner. Now is the hour of His pub- 
lic ministry: the hour of great revelations and 
miracles. The Spirit of God solemnly descends upon 
Him and takes special possession of Him with direct 
reference to His new mode of life. The Spirit, as it 
were, places Him more closely under its protection, 
— endows Him with special powers and gifts which 
were not exerted during His Hidden Life, but were 
now to have a bearing upon His mission. Hence it is 
that, soon after His baptism, Jesus is led into the 
Judean desert " by the Spirit " ; that, in the power 
of the Spirit, He returns to Galilee; that, by the 
power of the same divine Spirit, He casts out the 
demons from the souls of the possessed persons.^ 

" Henceforth," says B. Weiss, " Jesus would be 

1 Weiss, B., op. cit., p. 324; Sanday, art.: Jesus Christ, H. 
D., p. 611 ; cf. Jo. i. 31 : " And I knew Him not, but, that He 
may be made manifest in Israel, therefore I am come bap- 
tizing with water." 

2 Mk. i. 12; Mt. iv. i; Lk. iv. i; Lk. iv. 14; Mt. 3cii. cf. 
Lk. xi. I ; Mk. iii. 29. 



I 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



251 



under the continuous impulse of the Spirit who en- 
ables Him to say and to do what His Messianic voca- 
tion demands. He assumes this mission in order 
that through His works of grace and mercy God may 
be revealed unto His people." ^ 

The solemn event of the baptism, indeed, is not 
necessarily the first time that the Holy Spirit pos- 
sessed Jesus. From the first instant of His concep- 
tion, as the Gospel of the infancy testifies, He may 
have been substantially pervaded by the Spirit of God, 
and, until His baptism, have lived in intimate de- 
pendence upon this divine Spirit and in the conviction 
of His union with Him. The episode at the Jordan in 
nowise prevents such an admission ; for, in that case, 
there is question only and directly of a new mode in 
Jesus' endowment by the Holy Spirit, of a new phase 
that corresponds with the new kind of existence en- 
joyed by the Saviour (i. e. as the God-Man). Nor, 
again, are we at all obliged to believe that the miracu- 
lous event had any real influence upon the formation of 
Jesus' conviction of His Messiahship. We may rightly 
assert that, from the view-point of the fulfilment of 
His mission, a new kind of life began for Jesus, the 
Christ. The Baptism was " the starting-point " of His 
public ministry ; and, as such, we may call it " an im- 
portant moment," if by this we mean " a decisive 
moment," in His career. If, however, we go further 
and suppose that the event of the baptism marks an 
important date in the " inward development " of the 
Saviour, that it could have decidedly influenced " the 
development of His Messianic consciousness," we are 
going beyond what the texts imply and also the facts 
of history. 

Loisy claims that his theory has a Patristic basis, 
as also the support of a certain number of Catholic 
scholars. Of Christ's baptism he says that " the tra- 

1 Weiss, B., op. cit., p. 330, vol i. 



252 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ditional exegesis usually sees no more in this event 
than the very occasion on which Christ chose to reveal 
Himself and to institute Christian baptism. The 
texts themselves are proof against those who might 
care to force the theological method upon history; 
and we easily understand why, like the Church 
Fathers, several Catholic scholars maintain that the 
baptism indicates an important moment not solely for 
the outward manifestation of His divine life but also 
for His interior soul-development." ^ 

We may say that, between Loisy's own interpreta- 
tion and that which he particularly attributes to " the 
traditional exegesis," we can assign another which is 
even more conformable to criticism and to genuine 
tradition. It is the theory which we have endeavored 
to present. H Loisy's theory is considered unrehable, 
our own may supply its place. Loisy, indeed, is far 
from putting himself forward as a critic; nor did we 
see what Church Fathers, or Catholic scholars he can 
produce in his support. It is remarkable, too, how 
often Loisy so cautiously states his opinions ! For 
instance : *' We cannot say that, according to the 
Synoptic tradition, the baptism of Christ appeared to 
be the solemn consecration of His Messianic role. 
. . . The receiving of the baptism of John appears to 
have been a decisive moment in the career of the 
Saviour. . . . The circumstance of the baptism is like 
a starting-point in the ministry of the Saviour." ^ 

Indeed, that John the Baptist, the precursor, was 
aware of the near approach of the Messiah is shown 
ahke in the Fourth Gospel as in the three Synoptics. 
What right, therefore, have we to suppress such testi- 
mony? Why should we not see in it a significant 
guarantee of Jesus' own consciousness of His Messiah' 
ship on His arrival at the Jordan? At all events, we 

1 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 233. 

^ Loisy, ihid., p. 169 ; The Gospel and the Church, p. 20, 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



253 



have seen how S. Matthew's gospel formally wit- 
nesses this Messianic consciousness of the Saviour 
from the time that He first met John the Baptist. 

A careful critic of the Synoptic gospels will, there- 
fore, undoubtedly conclude that, at the baptism, there 
occurred a solemn declaration of Jesus' divine Son- 
ship, as also a public manifestation of His dignity 
as Messiah, His official consecration, we may say, as 
Messiah of the Lord, and His special endowment by 
the Holy Spirit in view of His mission's fulfilment. 
But naught shows that previously and secretly He 
was not the Messiah-Son of God and that He did not 
know Himself to be such. On the contrary, we may 
fully accept the testimony of the first Gospel which, 
like the fourth, presents Jesus as being fully aware 
of His Messiahship even at His meeting with the 
Precursor. 

The Divine Sonship. — H we are not authorized, 
therefore, in assigning the origin of the Messianic 
consciousness to the baptism, should we, at least, 
maintain that the filial consciousness, that is, Jesus' 
conviction of His divine Sonship, prepared the way 
for it? Apparently not. From the view-point of 
exegetical criticism, there is naught in the Gospels to 
allow us to suppose that Jesus' consciousness of being 
the Son of God preceded His conviction of being the 
Messiah, nor that it, in the least, helped to form it. 
Of course, in the Gospel accounts, such as those of 
the baptism, of the temptation, of the cure of the 
demoniacs, the title " Son of God " is apparently prior 
to that of " Messiah " ; but, in reality, from what we 
can see, the former title includes the latter. The 
Son of God who receives baptism is the Chosen Ser- 
vant, the privileged Messiah of the Almighty, and in 
receiving the Holy Spirit, He is thereby officially 
consecrated for His work. The Son of God who is 
tempted in the desert is also the Messiah whose mis- 
sion, so thoroughly spiritual, was destined to be 



^54 CHRIST AND THE GOSPBL 

carried on in the spirit of humility, of dependence 
upon God, of self-sacrifice, thus contrasting with the 
selfish, earthly views suggested by the Tempter. As is 
plain from the fairest criticism of the texts, the Gos- 
pel testimony proves that Jesus is proclaimed, and 
declares Himself to be always and in the same sense 
the Son of God and the Messiah. Nowhere is it 
suggested that He passed from the knowledge of 
His divine Sonship to that of His Messianic charac- 
ter. These two states of consciousness seem to co- 
exist together : the one pervades the other at the same 
time. 

Hence, there is no ground for the assertion of 
Loisy, who, after stating that " we cannot certainly 
conclude from these texts the origin of the Messianic 
consciousness in Jesus' soul," also adds that ^' the 
critic may conjecture that conviction of Sonship pre- 
ceded and prepared for the Messianic consciousness." 
To be sure, Loisy speaks of a possible conjecture 
simply. But still, he seems to go too far in justify- 
ing it in the name of criticism.^ 

Harnack, too, in making the following remark 
which is also a condemnation of his own method, 
seems to have fully understood this fact. " We shall 
never fathom," he writes, " the inward development 
by which Jesus passed from the assurance that He 
was the Son of God to the other assurance that He 
was the promised Messiah." ^ 

We may, therefore, conclude that there is nothing 
to keep us from admitting that the Messianic con- 
sciousness is not only prior to Jesus* baptism, but also 
that it is as ancient as His assurance of His divine 
Sonship. Loisy thinks that he may maintain that 
" Jesus calls Himself the only Son of God in the 
measure that He avows Himself to be the Messiah. 

1 Loisy, Le Quair. Evang., p. 103. 

2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 148. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



255 



Hence will the historian infer, hypothetically, that He 
believes Himself the Son of God because He believes 
Himself the Messiah." But we may quite justly 
reply that Jesus proclaims Himself the Messiah and 
the Son of God at the same time, and that, there- 
fore, He beheved Himself to be the Messiah inasmuch 
as He believed Himself to be the Son of God.^ 

The Incarnation. — Among the critics whose 
theories we have discussed, there are some who have 
made rather significant statements about Jesus 'con- 
sciousness of His divine Sonship. Thus it is that 
Harnack, although not positively asserting that Jesus 
was God's only-begotten Son, firmly believes that, in 
some way, He was Himself fully convinced of this 
fact. " How He came to this consciousness of the 
unique character of His relation to God as Son," he 
says : " how He came to the consciousness of His 
power, and to the consciousness of the obligation and 
the mission which this power carries with it, is His 
secret, and no psychology will ever fathom it. The 
confidence with which John makes Him address the 
Father : ' Thou hast loved Me before the world was 
created,' is, undoubtedly, the direct reflection of the 
certainty with which Jesus Himself spoke." ^ 

But, within the sphere of the Saviour's conscious- 
ness, there is no reason to draw a Hne of separation 
between His quality of Messiah and His quality of 
Son of God. If He deemed Himself chosen as God's 
eternal Son from all eternity. He must have believed 
Himself predestined from all eternity to be the 
Messiah. This point is apparently suggested by Har- 
nack when he speaks both of the '' power " which es- 
pecially characterized Jesus' divine filiation and of the 
" duty " or the mission implied by such power. 

B. Weiss says that as far back as Jesus could cast 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 105-106. 

2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 138. 



256 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

His eyes into His past life, He perceived no moment 
when God had made choice of Him, when He had be- 
gun to be the object of His love. He was aware of 
being beloved by God; for He had learnt to look to- 
wards His Father, and knew that in this love lay the 
principle of His election as Messiah. It was this 
line of thought which must have led Jesus to the con- 
viction that He was the object of God's love prior to 
His earthly existence, and that His election as Messiah 
originated in the depths of eternity.^ 

Does not this fact, indeed, stand in remarkable 
agreement with the account presented in the Gospel 
of the Infancy? As is shown in the first two chap- 
ters of SS. Mark and Luke, Jesus is the begotten Son 
of God, and the Messiah of the Lord. From the first, 
in virtue of His Father's eternal predilection, Jesus 
maintains His character of Messiah and Son of God: 
of this fact His own consciousness gives testimony. 

" If Jesus was conscious of no beginning in His 
peculiar relationship to God," says Dalman, '^ it must, 
of course, have had its genesis with His birth; and, 
further, God must have so participated in assigning 
that position, that the human factors concerned fell 
entirely in the back-ground." ^ 

It would have been very strange, however, if so 
extraordinary a conviction had been preceded by a 
period of ignorance wherein the Saviour was indis- 
tinguishable from other men in His relationship with 
God. How could He believe Himself the eternal ob- 
ject of His Father's love, singled out before His birth 
for the Messianic vocation, if He had recalled one in- 
stant in His Hfe when He was unaware of His divine 
filiation and of His mission? 

Wendt, indeed, does not hesitate to assign Jesus' 
conviction of being the Son of God to the very awak- 
ening of His religious consciousness; and that how- 



1 Weiss, B., op. cit., vol. i, p. 297. 

2 Dalman, op. cit., p. 286. 



) 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 



2S7 



ever early we must place the origin of His religious 
convictions, He always felt Himself to be in a rela- 
tion of sonship with God. Why,- then, should we not 
ascribe the same antiquity to His consciousness of 
being the Messiah ? ^ 

In fact, the declaration which the Gospel of the In- 
fancy attributes to Jesus during His sojourn among 
the doctors in the Temple seems to refer quite as 
much to His consciousness of Messiahship as to that 
of His divine Sonship. " Did ye not know," he asks, 
" that I must be about My Father's business ?" The 
historicity of this account, moreover, is considered un- 
questionable by such critics as Stapfer, O. Holtzmann, 
and B. Weiss.^ 

" The calm assurance with which He spoke of God 
as His Father," observes Wendt, " and of His sojourn 
in His Father's house as if it were a matter of course, 
and the child-like naivete and simplicity of judgment 
with which He perceived it a necessary duty to tarry in 
His heavenly Father's house in spite of His parents' 
departure and their anxious quest of Him, all these 
traits bear evidently the stamp of truth. We know 
not from what source Luke derived this narrative ; but 
we can say that it gives us a thoroughly true and 
natural picture of the spiritual life of Jesus as it 
existed at the dawn of His earthly development." ^ 

On this occasion, too, Jesus is apparently aware of 
His Messiahship as well as of His divine Sonship. 
And, despite himself, O. Holtzmann seems to admit 
as much ; for he says that, in this account the youthful 
Jesus is described under an aspect exactly corres- 
ponding with what, one day, His works shall manifest.* 

1 Wendt, op. cit., p. 97. 

2 Lk. ii. 49 ; Stapfer, Jesus Christ Before His Ministry, p. 
40; Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 100; Weiss, B., op, cit., vol. i, 
p. 278. 

3 Wendt, op. cit., p. 99. 

* Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 100. 

17 



258 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

So significant, indeed, is this fact that to explain 
it critics feel bound to assign the origin of His Mes- 
sianic consciousness "at a period prior to His baptism 
and during His childhood. In their view, it had been 
early latent in Jesus' soul and the vision at the bap- 
tism served simply to lead it onward to a full ex- 
pansion. 

" It is not, indeed, to be assumed," says O. Holtz- 
mann, " that the special conception of the will of God 
which Jesus set forth underwent at that time any 
transformation. But this evangel, which had hitherto 
slumbered in Him, required a special impulse in order 
that what was in His mind might be brought to birth, 
and so be made useful to the world. And this impulse 
was imparted to Him in the inspiring revelation made 
to Him beside the Jordan." ^ 

And Wendt remarks that " the difference in the 
case of Paul lay in the fact that the miraculous re- 
velation caused Him to break entirely with His past, 
and with His whole previous modes of view and 
course of life; whilst for Jesus the revelation rather 
disclosed the goal which formed the terminus of the 
direct line in which He was going." ^ 

Such admissions are noteworthy, and supply the 
best proof of the unusual meaning which must be re- 
cognized in the declaration of the Holy Child Jesus. 
To one who refuses to see in the miraculous vision at 
the baptism a meaning which it does not necessarily 
possess; to one who refuses to be influenced by the 
rather rationalistic prejudice that such consciousness 
could not be found in a twelve-year-old child, the 
Gospel account would seem to prove clearly that the 
Saviour was aware of His Messiahship as also of His 
divine Sonship during His pilgrimage to the Temple 
as well as at' His baptism. 

1 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 135, n. I. 

2 Wendt, op. cit, p. 97. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY 259 

" We cannot find in that expression," observes B. 
Weiss, " even an allusion to His Messianic calling, 
even supposing that we should seek to explain such an 
allusion as arising merely from a presentiment or fore- 
boding of His destiny; for, apart from the circum- 
stance that it is not what lies primarily in the word, 
we should thereby also step over the impossible bound- 
ary-line which is drawn around the consciousness of 
this stage of life." ^ 

Assuredly, even from the beginning of His earthly 
life as also throughout its course, Christ's conviction 
of being the Son of God and the Messiah is so re- 
markable for its calm confidence and seems to spring 
so freely from His inmost being, that it appears to 
be somehow inborn and connatural to Him. We may, 
then, find it interesting to give the views of some 
critics on this matter. 

" Everything seems to pour from Him naturally," 
writes Harnack, " as though it could not do other- 
wise, like a spring from the depths of the earth, clear 
and unchecked in its flow." ^ 

While Dalman thinks that " it seems to be an in- 
nate property of His personality, seeing that He, as 
distinct from all others, holds for His own the claim 
to the sovereignty of the world, and the immediate 
knowledge of God, just as a son, by right of birth, be- 
comes an heir, and, by growing up from childhood in 
undivided fellowship with the father, enters into that 
spiritual relationship with the father which is natural 
for the child." ^ 

Wernle, also, thinks that the basis of Jesus' Mes- 
sianic consciousness was an " inner compulsion," not 
necessarily connected with the vision at the baptism, 
and the origin of which remains a mystery. " It is 

1 Weiss, B., op. cit., vol. i, p. 279. 

2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 36, 

3 Dalman, op. cit., p. 285. 



26o CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

only honest to confess," he says, " that this origin is 
a mystery to us : we know nothing about it. All that 
we can say is how this consciousness did not arise in 
Jesus. It was not through slowly matured reflections 
of an intellectual nature. . . . Nor, again, was it 
owing to the influence of His surroundings. . . . The 
fact, too, that Jesus appears from the very first with 
unswerving constancy and immovable certainty as one 
sent by God causes us to abandon both explanations. 
There is nowhere any hesitation, or doubt, or develop- 
ment from presentiments to certainty. Jesus learns 
new things as to the manner of His calling, but never 
anything fresh as to the fact itself. He acts His 
whole life under the stress of compulsion. He knows 
Himself, nay, driven by God, He has only one choice : 
to obey or to disobey. . . . The consciousness of His 
call does not depend upon voices and visions, which 
everyone who has not himself experienced them is at 
liberty to doubt, but simply upon inner compulsion. 
How this compulsion came upon Him, whether it was 
in the end connected with some visionary experience, 
that is not for us to know." ^ 

Loisy likewise draws attention to the Saviour's 
" simple and profound intuitions of soul," the " superb 
assurance of His faith," His " irresistible impulse " 
to follow the Messianic summons. He further re- 
marks: ''We may say that His life-impulse is reli- 
gious, and we may add, uniquely, ardently religious. 
If O. Holtzmann terms as ecstasy the simple and pro- 
found intuitions of soul, the superb assurance of faith, 
he should have expressed himself differently. . . . 
The visionary and the practical man described by 
O. Holtzmann are blended into something higher 
which, properly speaking, is neither the one or the 
other, but is precisely a soul penetrated by a most pure 

1 Wernle, op. cit., pp. 45, 46. 



THE MESSIANIC MINISTRY. 261 

religious ideal and ruled by the conviction of having 
a special vocation to secure its realization." ^ 

And from the pen of Renan we have that rather as- 
tonishing declaration that Jesus " from the first " prob- 
ably " looked on Himself as standing with God in the 
relation of a son to his father " ; moreover, that His 
conviction of being " the Son of God, the bosom 
friend of the Father, the agent of His will," in other 
words, the general idea of His Messianic vocation, 
was " a thought so deeply rooted in Him that it prob- 
ably had no source outside, but lay in the very roots 
of His being." - 

To conclude : There is nothing in the Gospel ac- 
counts, when rightly interpreted, to allow us to assign 
the origin of Jesus' consciousness of being the Messiah 
and the Son of God at this or that particular moment 
of His earthly career. On the other hand, everything 
would seem to bear witness to the fact that Jesus 
holds His character of Messiah and Son of God from 
His very Incarnation and in virtue of His transcen- 
dant, divine nature. 

Does this mean that the Saviour, from the first in- 
stant of His earthly existence, was really aware of His 
dignity and of His mission, and that, from the same 
instant, this conviction was so perfect as to admit of 
no possible progress or further development ? This is 
quite a different question and pertains to the general 
question of Christ's human knowledge. 

Before we discuss it, we must more thoroughly 
analyze the meaning of the title " Son of God " ap- 
plied to Jesus, and also specify the particular re- 
lations that united His sacred humanity to His divin- 
ity. If the Gospel accounts, viewed in the light of the 
beHef of the Church, warrant us in inferring an in- 

1 Loisy, Rev. d'Hisf., 1904, p. 91 ; Holtzmann, O., War 
lesus Exstatiker? 1903. 

- Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 132, 162, 



262 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

comparably close and truly substantial union between 
Christ and God, it would be fitting to consider what 
consequences that union must have upon Jesus' hu- 
man knowledge. Was His human knowledge, we may 
ask, left to its own powers and to its own activity, or, 
rather, did it not receive a higher light from the 
divinity which possessed it? And, further, if this hu- 
man knowledge shared, in any way, the divine intelli- 
gence, to what extent can it admit a real development 
in His ideas? In particular, in what measure could 
there be a progress, essential or simply accidental, in 
the Saviour's consciousness of His Messiahship and 
divine Sonship ? It is a question which we can answer 
satisfactorily only after studying the fundamental 
problem of Jesus' divinity. 

For the present, it will suffice to note that the Epistle 
to the Hebrews appears to attribute to Christ, from 
His entrance into this world, the full conviction of 
what He is, in His humanity, with respect to God, and 
of the work which He is to accomplish ; " Where- 
fore, when He cometh into the world. He saith: 
' Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldst not, but a body 
Thou hast fitted to Me. Holocausts for sin did not 
please Thee.' Then said I : * Behold I come : in the 
head of the Book it is written of Me that I should do 
Thy will, O God.' " ^ 

iHeb. X, s. 



CHAPTER IV. 
The Public Life: Jesus the Son of God. 

I. Contemporary Criticism. 

Jesus declares Himself the Messiah ; and all that we 
know of Him and of His works confirms the truth of 
His statement : such is the conclusion to which we 
have been rightly led after a faithful study of the 
Synoptic Gospels. Jesus is, moreover, the Son of 
God, as all Christians have ever believed. But, in 
what sense does He bear this new title ? To what ex- 
tent does He merit this name ? Is He such only figur- 
atively and in a less precise sense, either because His 
Messiahship was a privilege, or because of the close 
relationship of His humanity to His Father? Or, 
rather in a real and ontological sense, because He 
is the truly Begotten Son of the Father and, hence, a 
sharer in God's very nature? This is the very im- 
portant and crucial matter which we are now to ex- 
amine. 

If we study the first three Gospels with the view 
of finding therein an authentic outline of Christ, it 
is unquestionable that He appears, alike in conduct as 
in teaching, to be truly man and subject to all the con- 
ditions of humanity. He is born with the frailties of 
childhood. At Nazareth, He increases in age, in wis- 
dom, in grace before God and men. In the earlier 
part of His public ministry, He receives the Baptism 
of Penance as might an ordinary sinner. He tells 
John that, Hke him, " it behooveth us to fulfil all jus- 
tice." By the impulse of the Spirit, He enters into 

(263) 



264 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the Judean desert and there He fasts and abstains and 
is tempted by the devil.^ 

During His pubhc Ufe He often becomes the prey 
of human misery, . of fatigue, of hunger, of thirst. 
After the long fast in the desert, He seems to break 
down. Thus, on His return to Bethany the day after 
His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, He reaches up 
to the barren fig tree in the hope of finding some 
fruit wherewith to appease His hunger. He sits at 
table with Levi the Publican to the scandal of the 
Pharisees who reproach Him for consorting with 
sinners. He dines with Simon the Pharisee, again 
with another Pharisee, and with Simon the Leper of 
Bethany. At times, the crowd of His followers is so 
dense that He cannot take His meal for lack of room. 
He eats the Paschal Lamb along with His disciples. 
He falls asleep in the ship while crossing the Sea of 
GaHlee.^ 

So, too, the soul's varied feelings, — pity, tenderness, 
sadness, sorrow, — all these does Jesus display. How 
full of affection for the youth who asks Him about 
the way that leads to eternal Hfe. How He pities 
the poor widow whose only son is soon to be buried. 
How great is His compassion for the. tired and fam- 
ished multitudes that follow Him far into the desert 
on the eastern shore of the Lake. How He weeps 
over Jerusalem, the city of unbelief and hardness of 
heart. How unutterable His abasement and sadness 
as He kneels in the Garden of Olives on the eve of 
His Passion. His soul is sad, even unto death. He 
falls down in an agony. A sweat of blood covers His 
limbs and the very ground where He lies prostrate, 
and lo, an Angel hastens to soothe Him ! ^ 

iLk. ii. 40, 51, 52; Mt. iii. 15. 

2Mt. iv. 2; Lk. iv. 2; Mk. xi. 12; Mt. xxi. 18; Mk ii. 15; 
Mt. ix. 10; Lk. V. 29; cf. Mt. xi. 19; Lk. vii. 34, 36; xi. Z7', 
Mk. xxiv. 3; Mt. xxvi. 6; Jo. xii. 2; Mk. iii. 20; Mk. xiv. 18; 
Mt. xxvi. 20 ; Lk. xxii. 14 ; Mk. iv. 38 ; Mt. viii. 24 ; Lk. viii. 2^. 

3 Mk. X. 21; Lk. vii. 13; Mk. vi. 34; Mt. xxvi. 37-38; Lk. 
xxii. 43-44- 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 265 

At last, after enduring the torments of His most 
fearful Passion, He dies upon the Cross. His corpse 
is soon embalmed in accordance with Jewish custom 
and is placed in the tomb. And, after His resurrection, 
He seeks to convince His disciples of the living real- 
ity of His glorified humanity. The disciples from 
Emmaus, after entering with Him into a wayside 
house, recognize Him as the Lord during the ceremony 
of the Breaking of Bread. And when the apostles are 
assembled within the cenacle. He appears in their 
midst : He bids them touch His feet and hands, and 
in their presence partakes of the fish and honey- 
comb. Verily, from first to last, do we see Jesus ap- 
pear as true and perfect man.^ 

Jesus also acts as a man when dealing with God, 
of whom He speaks as would creature to Creator. 
Do the Pharisees accuse Him of casting out devils 
by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of devils? He 
replies by showing that their absurd slander attacks, 
not Himself, the Son of Man, but God whose divine 
power is manifested through the ministry of this very 
Son of Man. Thus, evidently, He makes a distinc- 
tion between Himself, the Son of Man, and God 
whose Spirit He possesses. Once, a certain youth 
calls Him " good-master," and Our Lord rejoins : 
" Why callest thou Me good ? None is good but One, 
that is God." Again, He ascribes to God the honor 
of performing the miraculous cures which He him- 
self wrought. And as for the foresight of future 
events, He places Himself after His heavenly Father. 
Thus, the Judgment Day is so hidden in God that it 
is known to the Father alone. To the Son and to the 
Angels it is unknown.^ 

In God's presence, He acts as a suppliant; and the 

1 Mk. XV. 37, 46; Mt. xxvi. 50, 59, 60; Lk. xxiii. 49, 53; 
Lk. xxiv. 30, 39-43; cf. Jo. xxi. 5, 10-13. 

2 Mk. ii. 29; Mt. xii. 28; Lk. xi. 20; Mk. x. 17, 18; Mt. xix. 
16, 17; Lk. xviii. 18, 19; Mk. v. 19; Lk. viii. 39; Mk. xiii. 32; 
Mt. xxiv. 36, 



266 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Evangelists frequently relate how He was wont to give 
Himself up to prayer. Often He spends whole nights 
in prayer. While awaiting a miracle, He raises His 
eyes to heaven. He can even invoke His Father and 
obtain from Him more than a dozen legions of angels 
to assist Him. His prayer in Olivet shows, especially, 
the real distinction between Himself and God, between 
His own and His Father's will. And, whilst dying 
upon the Cross, He complains to His Father that He, 
whom He calls His God, has abandoned Him, and, as 
would an humble creature, He commends His soul into 
His hands.^ 

Thus does Jesus plainly draw the line between Him- 
self and God: He assumes the attitude of a creature 
towards the divine majesty; He acts as an inferior 
when in presence of His Father ; He recognizes Him- 
self as being truly man. 

Renan. — While, however, the features above de- 
scribed argue a real and living humanity on Jesus' 
part, and thus greatly impress whoever studies the 
Gospel perspective of Christ, it is otherwise with 
Rationalists who, after exaggerating these character- 
istics, want to conclude that, if Christ were truly man. 
He was really nothing more. The Evangelists, says 
Renan, make Him act " purely as a man. He is 
tempted ; He is ignorant of many things ; He corrects 
Himself; He changes His opinion; He is cast down, 
discouraged; He entreats His Father to spare Him 
trials; He is submissive to God as a Son; He who 
must judge the world does not know the date of the 
day of judgment. He takes measures for His safety. 
Directly after His birth He has to be concealed, to 
escape from powerful men who wish to kill Him. . . . 
All this is simply the work of a messenger of God, — a 

1 Mt. xiv. 23 ; Lk. ix. 18, 28 ; xi. i ; xxii. 42 ; Lk. vi. 12 ; Mk. 
vii. 34; cf. Jo. xi. 38, 41; Mt. xxvi. 53; Mk. xiv. 35-36, sq; 
Mt. xxvi. 39, 42, 44; Lk. xxii. 42; Mt. xv. 34; Mt. xxvii. 46; 
Lk. xxiii. 46. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 26;^ 

man protected and favored by God. In His exorcisms, 
the devil resists and will not come out at the first 
command. In His miracles, there appears a painful 
effort, a weariness as if ' some virtue had gone out 
from Him.' " ^ 

We may remark that Renan's inclination to yield 
to unbecoming humor has led him, here as elsewhere, 
to exaggerate the true sense of the texts, or even to 
render them meaningless; as is clear from the texts 
to which he refers in chapters xvii, ix, viii and xi, 
respectively, of the Gospels according to SS. Matthew, 
Mark, Luke and John. But is not his inference 
rather hasty and premature ? Does it fully account 
for all the phases of the problem and for the entire 
mass of facts? Undoubtedly, it is right to insist on 
the fact of the reality of Christ's humanity. The 
person whom we behold is truly a man. He pos- 
sesses hum^n nature in its entirety, — intelligence, free- 
will, personal and free activity. He deals with men 
as an equal and brother, and towards God as an in- 
ferior and subject. But if we let the matter go at 
this like the Rationalist critics, would it not imply a 
superficial study, a mere partial accounting for the 
facts, a half-formed criticism? Jesus is verily man; 
but it does not necessarily follow that He is noth- 
ing else. 

One of the chief teachings of the Catholic faith is 
the reality of Christ's divine Sonship, and hence His 
real divinity. This doctrine is enough to assure us 
a priori that we may be certain of our faith in the 
particular dogma in question. The authority of the 
Church itself rests upon a basis quite separate from 
the Saviour's assertions of His divinity as interpreted 
by Bible commentators ; and the same principle applies 
to the instances where He does not assert His divine 
nature. Whether we view Jesus as the real and true 

1 Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 263. 



268 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Son of God, or whether we do not regard Him as 
such expHcitly and evidently, He presents Himself, 
at least, as God's own envoy and as the founder of 
that Church which, until the end of time, shall be 
assisted by the Spirit of God. God Himself has 
not ceased to directly witness and confirm the divine 
truth of His Church throughout the course of ages, 
alike by various miraculous interventions as by all the 
most authentic marks of His presence and activity. 
This suffices for us who believe in the divine authority 
of the Church and in the infallible truth of its official 
teaching. A priori, therefore, because the Church be- 
lieves and teaches it, and because its beHef and teach- 
ing are in a manner guaranteed and sanctioned by 
God, we may say, with the certitude of faith, that our 
Lord Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God, and God 
Himself become man through the Incarnation. 

At all events, as the Church has never- denied the 
truth of Christ's affirmations, on this point, nor on 
others, a priori we may rest assured that naught in the 
Gospel account of what He says about Himself denies, 
but rather implies this belief. 

The Church's teaching, indeed, is our sure rule of 
faith; but, apart therefrom, the question is prompted 
by the conviction prevalent in the early Church which 
affords testimony that cannot fail to impress the 
most independent critic. Indeed, there is no doubt 
that the Church in the apostolic times thought that 
Jesus was a person of superhuman character and 
closely alHed by nature with the divinity. S. Paul, 
for instance, shows Jesus to be the Son of God, pre- 
existing before the moment that His Father sent Him 
forth into this world. So too, in the Fourth Gospel, 
He is identified with the Word of God, pre-existing 
in God from eternity. And, in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, He is described as sharing the divine nature 
and as assisting in the creation of the world. This 
tradition, therefore, so early current, so ancient, so 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 269 

warranted by Christ's own words and deeds, must 
have a sound basis. 

Another feature that prompts our researches is the 
fact that Renan, in seeking to give an appreciation of 
the Saviour's personahty, seems impelled, as it were, 
to employ unusual terms. His style of language would 
be, let us say, highly ridiculous, horribly grotesque, 
if he was speaking of a mere man. Still, if he does 
speak thus of Christ Jesus, is it not because, de- 
spite himself, he recognizes something transcendent 
and superhuman in His person? Here is the tirade 
that follows his account of the Saviour's death : " Rest 
now in Thy glory, noble Founder ! Thy work is com- 
pleted; Thy divinity is established. . . . Henceforth, 
beyond all frailty, Thou shalt witness, from the depth 
of Thy divine peace, the unending results that follow 
from Thy deeds. . . . Henceforth men shall draw no 
boundary between Thee and God. Do Thou , . . 
take possession of Thy Kingdom, whither, by the 
royal road Thou hast pointed out, long generations 
of adorers shall follow Thee!" EarHer in his work, 
he had also said : " It was, then, for some few months, 
— a year perhaps, — that God truly dwelt upon earth." 
And finally : *' To make Himself adored to this de- 
gree. He must have been worthy to be adored. . . . 
The faith, the enthusiasm, the constancy of the first 
Christian generation are to be explained only by as- 
suming, at the beginning of it all, a man of transcend- 
ent greatness. . . . This sublime Person, who day by 
day still presides over the destiny of the world, may 
well be called divine, — not in the sense that Jesus has 
absorbed all that is divine, or was one with it ; but in 
the sense that He is the one who has impelled His 
fellow-men to take the longest step towards the 
divine." ^ 

Renan's inveterate liking for sentimental and de- 

1 Renan, op. cit., pp. 136, 395, 412, 420, 421. 



270 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

clamatory rhetoric is of course to be taken into ac- 
count when there is question of interpreting these 
various texts. In his " Life of Jesus," he allows him- 
self to drift along easily in the stream of harmonious 
phrasing and abandon of words. No previous writer, 
indeed, had ever dreamed of employing such extreme 
language when speaking of Christ. To do so, and 
nevertheless to view Christ as a mere man, — this seems 
insincere. He pretends not to believe at all in the 
divinity of Christ; but he can speak of Him only as 
would a believer. He pretends to dethrone Him from 
heaven ; but he appears to be fascinated by His divine 
aureole! He impresses every sensible man as giving 
a disfigured and counterfeit representation of Christ's 
person by affecting to lower it to the level of ordin- 
ary humanity, although he speaks of Him in a way 
that befits only a superhuman being. 

Is there not, moreover, an implied testimony to 
Christ's real divinity in the very manner in which he 
is constrained to interpret Jesus' own testimony about 
Himself? He vainly asserts: *' Jesus never once ut- 
ters the sacrilegious thought that He is himself God. 
. . . That Jesus ever dreamed of claiming to be an 
incarnation of the true God, there is no ground what- 
ever to suspect . . . the first three Gospels have no 
trace of it." But he fears not to say of the Saviour : 
" The position which He assigned to Himself was that 
of a superhuman being; and He wished to be regarded 
as having a more exalted relation with God than other 
men. . . . God does not speak to Him as to one out- 
side of Himself: God is in Him. . . . The trans- 
cendent idealism of Jesus never permits Him to have a 
very clear notion of His own personality. He is His 
Father, — His Father is He. . . . We cannot fail to 
see in these affirmations of Jesus the germ of the 
doctrine which was, later on, to make Him a divine 
' hypostasis,' in identifying Him with the ' Word.' " ^ 

1 Renan, op. cit., pp. 132, 257, 258, 260. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



271 



These admissions are certainly surprising. They 
suppose that the Saviour made very extraordinary de- 
clarations about His own personality: and it matters 
much to ascertain their exact meaning. We are 
warranted in asking if the doctrine which was, later 
on, to make of Jesus " a divine hypostasis," became en- 
grafted by mistake upon those assertions of His that 
did not contain it at all; just Hke a parasite upon a 
tree of a different species; or, again, to insist upon 
Renan's very words, if this doctrine was not contained 
already in those affirmations as in a germ which 
further development would not transform, but keep 
substantially identical with itself. 

Liberal Protestants. — Protestants of the Liberal 
school of criticism readily admit that the problem un- 
der discussion is insoluble; or, rather, in a general 
way, they give up hope of finding in the Christ of his- 
tory that Christ whom the Church recognizes as being 
true God and true Son of God. Like Renan, they 
insist upon the well-assured humanity of Jesus, upon 
His attitude of subordination and of inferiority with 
respect to His Father, more especially upon the limited 
sphere of His knowledge and upon His liableness to 
the erroneous opinions current in His day. 

Thus, Stapfer would have us believe that " Jesus 
was a man of His time, and shared the beliefs of 
His time. ... At the present time, among Christians, 
no one believes precisely like Jesus." Again, to be 
His disciple, it suffices to believe " in Him." . . . He 
was less than His Father: the Father had not re- 
vealed all things to Him. ... If He was the Son of 
God in a special sense. He was that as all men are, 
or may become. His sons." ^ 

And Bruce tells us that " the remarks of Jesus 
about the future show a limitation in His knowledge. 

1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, pp. 236, 245, 
251. 



2^2 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

On other points are like indications that Jesus was the 
child of His people and of His times." ^ 

Harnack, also, says that Jesus " described the Lord 
of heaven and earth as His God and Father ; as the 
Greater, and as Him who is alone good. He is certain 
that everything which He is to accomplish comes from 
His Father. He prays to Him; He subjects Himself 
to His will; He struggles hard to find out what it is 
and to fulfil it. Aim, strength, understanding, the 
issue, and the hard * must,' all come from the Father. 
This is what the Gospels say, and it cannot be turned 
or twisted. This feeling, praying, working, struggling, 
and suffering individual is a -man who, in the face of 
His God, also associates Himself with other men." ^ 

This class of critics, however, while emphasizing 
the Saviour's humanity do not fail to insist on what is 
supernatural in His own knowledge and extraordinary 
in His claims, and, differently from the thorough- 
going Rationalists, recognize these facts as well es- 
tablished. 

We are told by Stapfer that " Jesus was convinced 
that all who believed in Him would receive the entire 
satisfaction of their religious needs. . . . He never 
demanded beliefs, but confidence in Himself; and 
by this confidence, He created a new life in the soul, 
a religious and moral life, — communion with God." 
. . . Thus, Jesus came, little by little, to the point 
where He could make the highest assertions con- 
cerning Himself, His work, the future, the final tri- 
umph of righteousness, and of His own person. . . . 
He was one day to judge and renew the world, to pre- 
side at the final assizes, where all humanity would ap- 
pear, — this was His office." ^ 

Wernle, like Harnack, declares that Jesus presents 

1 Bruce, art. : Jesus, E. B., col. 2454. 

2 Harnack, What is Christianity? p. 136. 
s Stapfer, op. cit., pp. 243, 254. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



273 



Himself as a man among men, as one who feels the 
sense of distance separatmg Him, like every creature, 
from God. He strongly insists upon the supernatural 
character of the Saviour's knowledge, assuring us 
that '' Christianity arose because a layman, Jesus of 
Nazareth, endowed with the consciousness of being 
more than a prophet, came forward and attached men 
so firmly to His person that, in spite of His shameful 
death, they were ready both to live for Him and to die 
for Him. . . . From passages taken from the Syn- 
optics it appears clearly that Jesus is conscious of being 
more than a man. And this is the mystery of the origin 
of Christianity. What we need to do above all is to 
accept it as a fact, — a fact which demands a practical 
and reverent hearing. . . . The most wonderful fea- 
ture in Jesus is the co-existence of a self-conscious- 
ness that is more than human with the deepest hu- 
mility before God. . . . He is always modest, humble, 
sane and sober, and yet with this superhuman self- 
consciousness. It is quite impossible to realize such 
an inner life as this." ... In correspondence with 
Jesus' transcendent personal consciousness there also 
answers, in Wernle's opinion, the transcendent char- 
acter of His whole hfe. " If He passes nights in 
solitary prayer, if in His zeal for preaching and 
healing, He forgets both food and rest, if He inter- 
rupts the ordinary sequence of natural laws, or. Him- 
self subject to some mysterious power, appears to His 
companions as a being of another world and to His 
ignorant relations as one possessed, — everywhere there 
is the same impression of the superhuman." ^ 

Harnack thus summarizes the opinions of B. Weiss 
and Wendt, whose remarkable descriptions of the pre- 
eminence of Christ's divine Sonship and of the in- 
comparable excellence of His mission were given 
above. " This Jesus," he says, " who preached hu- 

1 Wernle, op. cit., pp. 40, 41, 42. 
18 



274 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

mility and knowledge of self, nevertheless named 
Himself, and Himself alone, the Son of God. He 
is certain that He knows the Father, that He is to 
bring this knowledge to all men, and that, thereby, He 
is doing the work of God. Among all the works of 
God, this is the greatest; it is the aim and end of all 
creation. The work is given to Him to do, and in 
God's strength He will accomplish it. It was out 
of this feehng of power and in the prospect of vic- 
tory that He uttered the words : ' The Father hath 
committed all things to me.' Again and again in the 
history of mankind, men of God have come forward 
in the sure consciousness of possessing a divine mes- 
sage, and of being compelled, whether they will or 
not, to deliver it. But the message has always hap- 
pened to be imperfect." . . . But, in this case, the 
message brought was of the profoundest and most 
comprehensive character; it went to the very root of 
mankind, and, although set in the frame-work of 
the Jewish nation, it addressed itself to the whole of 
humanity, — the message from God the Father. . . . 
He who delivered it has, as yet, yielded His place to 
no man, and to human life He still to-day gives a 
meaning and an aim : He is the Son of God." ^ 

The superiority of Christ Jesus, — in what, then, 
does it consist? Is it merely relative, and hence de- 
noting His pre-eminence over other men, whilst He 
"still remains a mere man? Or rather, is it some- 
thing absolute, and, therefore, grounded upon the 
very nature of His being and upon a substantial union 
with God? 

This dogma of the consubstantial union of Christ, 
the Son of God, with His Father, thinks B. Weiss, 
is rather a teaching influenced by Christian belief than 
a strict and exact interpretation of historical facts. 

" This divine Sonship of Jesus " he says, '' in the 

1 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 139-140. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 275 

ethical sense, will have its deeper ground in an original 
relationship of love on the part of God to Him, a 
relation which is established by the Father Himself. 
Whether this reaches back into eternity and depends 
upon an original relationship of essence on the part 
of the Son to the Father, — to shed light on this point 
Jesus could not appeal to his own testimony without 
going entirely beyond the intellectual horizon of his 
hearers. It was the development of the doctrine of the 
Apostles that allowed men for the first time to enter 
into these questions. . . . All attempts to import into 
this self-designation (of Son of God) the dogmatic 
idea of a divine generation, or of a metaphysical con- 
substantiality of essence with Him, are simply un- 
historical. . . . The assertion that this (perfect knowl- 
edge Jesus claims to have of the Father) already pre- 
supposes the consubstantiality of essence, is only a 
dogmatic axiom." ^ 

And, if we w^ould believe Wendt, the " Synoptic 
sources p'rove that, on certain occasions, although sel- 
dom, Jesus calls Himself the Son of God in a sense 
that ranks Him above all other men. . . . This, how- 
ever, does not warrant us in ascribing to Jesus such 
filial relations with His Father as would have, in 
principle, a different character from those which, ac- 
cording to His own words, should unite His disciples 
to God. . . . His very words show that men ought to 
aspire to a God-like love, and thus " become the sons 
of the heavenly Father." Thenceforth, aware as He 
was of His perfect affection, so much in touch with 
God's will and very nature, we see how He could feel 
assured of being, par excellence, the Son of God." - 

" The sentence, * I am the Son of God,' was not 
inserted in the Gospel by Jesus Himself," says Har- 
nack ; " and to put that sentence there, side by side 

1 Weiss, B., Bibl TheoL N. T., vol. i, p. 81, n. 3; p. 78, n. i. 

2 Wendt, op. eit., pp. 417, 421, Ger. ed. 



2^6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

with the others, is to make an addition to the Gospel." 
He seems to regard Christ as a man who is united to 
God in an incomparable manner, and in whom God 
Himself is manifested in an ideal and unique manner. 
In fact, he goes on to say : '' No one who accepts the 
Gospel, and tries to understand Him who gave it to us, 
can fail to affirm that here the divine appeared in as 
pure a form as it can appear on earth." ^ 

Wernle, however, thinks that Jesus' personality, 
owing to the seeming double element, the human and 
the super-human, which it embraces, is still mysterious. 
He is inclined to portray Christ as the supreme and 
final Mediator, whose nature he declines to explain 
otherwise than by the general term of Messiah. 
'' Jesus conceived of Himself as a Mediator." The 
Mediator is altogether man, without subtraction of 
anything that is human. But He has received from 
God an especial call and commission to His fellow- 
men, and thereby He towers high above them. Jesus 
shares this feeling of being a mediator with other 
men like Him. Even if it has in His case attained the 
highest degree of constancy, depth and reality, yet 
no formula can define its exact limits. . . . There 
was in Him something entirely new, a surpassing 
greatness, a superhuman self-consciousness which sets 
itself above all authorities, declaring God's will and 
promises, imparting consolation, inspiring courage, 
delivering judgment with divine power, a new 
mediatorship between God and man, that left all the 
former far behind it. . . . The superhuman self-con- 
sciousness of Jesus, who knows nothing higher than 
Himself save God, can find satisfactory expression in 
no other form but that of the Messianic idea." ^ 

O. Holtzmann takes almost a similar view. He says : 
" The descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus lifts him 

1 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 156-157. 

2 Wernle, op. cit., pp. 40, 45, 55. 



JESUS THE SOX OF GOD 



277. 



above all the prophets; by this divine gift, he is 
qualified to be the ruler of the everlasting world of 
the future. . . . He becomes, for the first time, en- 
dowed with the attributes which distinguished the 
Messiah from all other men : he becomes the first-born 
Son of the Spirit of God, because it is through him 
that all other men are to participate in the Spirit of 
God." And J. Weiss also insists that Jesus con- 
sidered Himself as the Elect par excellence who was 
more than a prophet.^ 

So too, Stapfer does not pretend to condemn " a 
priori any formula, any dogmatic decree of the 
Church," about the Saviour's personality. But he re- 
marks : " I am more and more persuaded of the inan- 
ity of definitions and formulas." As he says, " there 
are differences between the Christological ideas of the 
Synoptics, those of the Fourth Gospel, and the meta- 
physical notions set forth in more than one Epistle. 
These differences are evident. It is, therefore, neces- 
sary to choose, and to choose is to create individual 
opinions. . . . For my part, I am not surprised at this ; 
nor do I regret it. I am convinced that individual- 
ism of this sort is the wisest course, and the only one 
possible at the present time. Each believer in Pro- 
testantism makes his own Christology, because each 
believer represents the divinity of Jesus Christ in his 
own w^ay, and it is not the way of his neighbor." ^ 

To judge from his views expressed in various parts 
of his writings, Stapfer had no settled theory. If, 
however, his views do not seem to be quite coherent, 
they are nevertheless interesting to study from the 
view-point of Protestant criticism. He endeavors to 
level the Saviour's personality to the plane of mere 
humanity, although he strives, at the same time, to 

1 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 135 ; Weiss, J., op. cit., p. 64. 

2 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, p. 259; The 
Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, pp. 271, 274-275. 



278 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

hold to the titles Son of God and Messiah. " Jesus 
was the Son of God," he writes, " but He seems never 
to have conceived the idea that He might be an in- 
carnation of God. ... If He was the Son of God 
in a special sense, it was that as all men are or may 
become His sons. We cannot go farther without en- 
tering the domain of dogmatics, and we abide by the 
expression ' divine sonship.' " ^ 

Nevertheless, this author makes very remarkable 
declarations in favor of Christ's transcendence and 
real divinity. " Let us recall to mind," he remarks, 
" the grand saying of Jesus : ' No one knoweth the 
Son but the Father,' I say, on the authority of this 
utterance, that it is impossible to define Jesus. He 
remains above and outside of all the subtilties, — I say 
more — of all the impossibilities of metaphysics ; and by 
the word, ' No one knoweth the Son but the Father,' 
He remains an incomprehensibility, which is one of 
the most certain signs of His divinity, and should 
make a part of all our adoration of Him. ... In 
this work, which is neither dogmatic nor metaphysical, 
and in which we confine ourselves to ascertaining the 
facts, we find ourselves led on to the establishment 
of facts which are strange and utterly inexplicable 
if Jesus was not a being apart, above, and beyond 
humanity as we know it. . . . The Christ of the 
Fourth Gospel in no respect surpasses Him whom 
the Synoptists had made us perceive. Jesus was, 
indeed, the one who is ' the way, the truth, and 
the life.' . . . He who hath seen Him, hath seen the 
Father." ..." In presence of such a being, a being 
who had such moral greatness and such compassion, 
who possessed so absolute a conviction, who made 
such unheard-of demands, who showed so entire a de- 
votion, and who enjoyed a life, in God and by Him, so 
deep, so intense, so evidently certain, the exclamation 

1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, p. 236. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



279 



of Thomas is not too strong : it bursts from our hearts 
and hps; we utter to Jesus this cry of obedience and 
adoration : ' my Lord, and my God.' " ^ 

Conservative Protestants. — The position taken 
by Protestant critics is surely significant. The most 
independent writers among them recognize as a his- 
torical fact, as a main point of the faith of the Church, 
the mysterious, transcendent, and superhuman charac- 
ter of Jesus' personality. He is placed above the 
prophets. He is called the Messiah, the Son of God, 
the ideal Alediator. Does not this avowal of modern 
scholars afford a strong presumption in favor of the 
well-established integrity of our faith? 

The features noticeable in Christ's real and living 
humanity agree with the plain statement of the early 
Church as also with that of the Church to-day. Nor 
is it, a priori, at all prejudicial to the doctrine of the 
same Church regarding the substantial union of 
Christ's humanity with the divinity. Besides, when 
we find such critics assigning to Jesus a position 
far above the prophets, declaring Him the supreme 
Mediator, the Son of God par excellence, and ad- 
hering exclusively to facts in their references to what 
was " superhuman " or " divine " in Jesus, as did 
Wernle and Harnack, — we may rightly suspect that 
the dogma of Christ's substantial union with the 
Father is not as independent of historical facts as 
they wish to assert. We may also surmise that 
Stapfer had good reason to declare that the facts are 
" inexphcable if Jesus had not been a being apart, 
above and beyond humanity," and that " the Christ 
of the Fourth Gospel in no respect surpasses Him 
whom the Synoptists had made us perceive." 

Such is the opinion of a number of distinguished 
Protestant critics to whom the Christ of the Gospel 

^ Stapfer, The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, p. 
275; Jesus Christ During His Ministry, pp. 244, 245, 264. 



28o CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

is none other than the Christ of Christian belief? 
Among French Protestants this view is held by Godet, 
lately professor of the independent Faculty of Neu- 
chatel, and among Anglicans, by such noted authors 
as Sanday of Oxford and Stevens of Yale. Catholic 
critics also have thus ever thought. But it remained 
for our day to witness an attempt to interpret the 
Gospel testimony on Christ's person as the hberal 
Protestants would do. So that, in view of the stir 
caused by recent works of Loisy, and the importance 
of the question, we may proceed to give a complete 
statement of Loisy's theory on Jesus' divinity, as also 
of its exact meaning.^ 

II. Loisy's Theory of Christ's Divinity. 

I. '' THE GOSPEL AND THE CHURCH." 

It was in 1902 that the Catholic reading public 
throughout France were startled by a book entitled 
" The Gospel and the Church." Its author, Alfred 
Loisy, of Paris, was careful to remind the reader that 
his aim was " to catch the point of view of history ", 
and, in particular, to discuss " solely according to the 
data of history " the well-known work of Harnack, 
familiar to English readers under the name of " What 
is Christianity " ? In a later work, which he named 
"Autour d'un petit Livre ", Loisy says that his 
former book was but " a modest effort towards historic 
construction ", and that, especially as regards Jesus' 
person, " he felt bound to portray the historic outline 
of the Saviour, . . . the ministry of Jesus in the 
humble conditions of real life, . . . the Christ as 
shown in history ".^ 

1 Godet, com. siir. VEv. de S. Luc, 2d ed. ; Sur. S. Jean, 
4th ed. ; Stevens, The Theol. of the N. T., 1901 ; The Teach- 
ing of Jesus, 1902 ; Sanday, art. : Jesus Christ, H. D. ; art. : 
The Son of God, H. D. ; Liddon, The Divinity of our Lord. 

2 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 2, 3; Autour d\un 
Petit Livre, pp. vii, viii, 11, 112, 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 281 

In thus taking history as his basis, Loisy thinks that 
he has reached the following conclusions : Jesus re- 
vealed Himself directly and only as the Messiah : His 
assertion even of His divine Sonship did not really go 
beyond the avowal of His Messiahship. He assures 
us that " more than one passage in the Gospels can 
be found without difficulty from which the conclusion 
is clear that the title, Son of God, . . . was, for the 
Saviour Himself, the equivalent of Messiah. . . . 
In so far as the title. Son of God, belongs, in an ex- 
clusive sense, to the Saviour, it is equivalent to that 
of Messiah, and takes its meaning from the rank of 
the Messiah. . . . Jesus named Himself the Son 
of God to the extent to which He avowed Himself the 
Messiah ".^ 

What, then, does Loisy really think of Christ as 
Messiah? He believes that His Messiahship wholly 
consists in the " providential function " which the 
Saviour exercises in the Kingdom of Heaven, in the 
"office" which He was destined to, hold at the final 
advent. " The office of Messiah ", he says, is essentially 
eschatological. . . . He speaks but little of Himself 
in His preaching. . . . but, none the less, assigns 
to Himself an essential part in the arrival and es- 
tabhshment of the Kingdom." ^ 

So that, though identical with the idea of Messiah- 
ship, " the idea of the divine Sonship was linked to 
that of the Kingdom : as far as Jesus was concerned, 
it had no definite significance except in regard to the 
Kingdom about to be established. . . . The title, 
Son of God, equivalent to that of Messiah belongs to 
Jesus, not because of His inner disposition and His 
Religious experiences, but because of His providential 
function as the sole ag:ent of the Kingdom of Heaven. 
. . . He is the Son, par excellence, because He alone 
is the Vicar of God for the Kingdom of Heaven ".^ 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and- the Church, pp. 91, 105. 

2 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 102, 105, 108. 

3 Loisy, op. cit., p. 105. 



282 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

If, therefore, we critically interpret the Gospel in 
this fashion, we should infer that, in proclaiming His 
Divine Sonship, Jesus had merely sought to declare 
His character of Messiah, that, in calling Himself the 
Son of God, He did so simply as '' the principal agent 
and predestined head " of the Messianic Kingdom. 
Loisy, indeed, seems to go still further. He implies 
that, historically speaking, Jesus was aware of being 
nothing but Messiah Ruler of the Kingdom and that, 
this consciousness itself may have been acquired 
but not inborn. " It must be recognized also ", he 
writes, '' that the texts permit no psychological analysis 
of the idea of Son of God. Jesus named Himself 
the Son of God to the extent to which He avowed 
Himself the Messiah. The historian must come, there- 
fore, to the hypothetical conclusion that He beHeved 
Himself the Son of God from the time He believed 
Himself to be the Messiah ".^ 

Undoubtedly, the above theory tends to subvert the 
traditional basis of the faith of Catholics. For, if 
Jesus in no way whatever revealed Himself as the true 
Son of God nor believed Himself to be such, what is 
to become of the dogma of His divinity? Once that 
we suppress the Saviour's own testimony, upon what 
basis shall faith in the Christ-God continue to stand? 

Loisy, in fact, is not very precise. He merely says 
that " the Christological dogma was, before every- 
thing, the expression of what Jesus represented, from 
the beginning, to Christian conscience. The passage 
from the mere idea of the Messiah, as head of the 
heavenly Kingdom, to that of the Incarnate Word was 
due to a twofold influence, namely, the control of 
Greek philosophy over the Gentile converts and the 
instinct of the faith itself which had to employ Greek 
terms in endeavoring to interpret the idea of Christ's 
Messiahship.2 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 105, 107, 

2 Loisy, op. cit., p. 214, 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 283 

" The development of Christian dogma ", he writes, 
'* was brought about by the state of mind and culture 
of the earliest converts, who were Gentiles or under 
Gentile influence. ... So far as they were imbued 
with Greek culture they felt the need of interpreting 
their new faith to themselves. ... In this way, 
progressively but beginning at an early date, the Greek 
interpretation of the Christian doctrine of the Messiah 
came into being through the spontaneous effort of the 
faith to define itself, through the natural exigences of 
propagandism ; and thus the Christ, Son of God and 
Son of Man, predestined Saviour, became the Word 
Made Flesh, the Revealer of God to humanity. . . . 
The divinity of Christ, the Incarnation of the Word, 
was the only conceivable way of translating to Greek 
intelligence the idea of the Messiah. . . . From a 
historical point of view, it may be maintained that the 
Trinity and the Incarnation are Greek dogmas, since 
they are unknown to Judaism and Judaic Christianity, 
and that Greek philosophy, which helped to make 
them, also aids in their comprehension ".^ 

If, however, we consider these two ideas, thus 
placed in mutual connection, namely, the idea of 
Messiah and that of the Incarnate Word, we may ask 
if it is quite right to say that, in formulating the latter, 
the instinct of the faith was only " interpreting " for 
itself and "translating" the former? The idea of 
Messiah presents Jesus simply as the head of the 
future Kingdom, while the idea of the Incarnate 
Word presents Him as the Eternal Son of God, made 
flesh in course of time, and at once true God and true 
man. It does not at all seem likely that the former 
idea contains the latter, nor that therein it finds its 
equivalent expression, its " translation " pure and 
simple, its proportionate " interpretation ". 

Does Loisy mean to say that, to those possessing 
" the faith ", the Messianic formula had finally as- 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 192, 193, 195. 



284 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

sumed a sense more complete that the primitive one; 
that '' the faith " could discern in the primary idea of 
Messiah the hitherto unknown though real germ of 
the idea of the Incarnate Word? Again, he should 
have expressed himself more clearly and stated exactly 
what was meant by that " instinct of faith ", that 
" spontaneous effort of the faith to define itself ". 
Did it imply a special providence of God, a particular 
light and impulse of grace, which, along with the con- 
currence of outward influences, served to assist and 
direct the Church so that its faith might be given a 
new expression, a more ample interpretation, while 
still retaining the meaning of the primitive idea which 
was really far more complete, far richer in significance 
than might be at first supposed? Such is, we think, 
the most Catholic way to interpret Loisy's views. 
But how is it that he does not express himself more 
clearly upon so vital a matter? 

Moreover, his theory, as he has stated it, appears 
to present serious difliculties. Thus, on the one hand, 
it is inconceivable that, if the idea of Messiah em- 
braced and contained the idea of the Incarnate Word 
in any way at all, there is, as Loisy indeed claims, no 
trace of it in the Gospels, inasmuch as the Saviour 
apparently never revealed it in any manner nor was 
even aware of it. On the other hand, if the faith alone 
could have discerned the real and deeper sense of the 
Messianic idea, what warrant is there for the truth 
of that faith and for the soundness of its instinct? 
What means do we have of ascertaining that it comes 
from God and that its interpretation is authorized by 
Heaven ? When we openly assault the historic founda- 
tions of dogma, when we attempt to ruin in particular 
the traditional belief in the foundation of the Church, 
— a fact surely intended and well-considered by Christ, 
it becomes at least a duty to explain precisely upon 
what solid basis the faith continues to rest and how 
it is possible to hold as lawful and true a belief of the 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 285 

primitive Christians which is represented as being ojd- 
posed, as it were, to the Saviour's own manifestation 
and personal convictions. 

He remarks, rightly enough, with reference to his 
book: "In no sense is it an attempt to write an 
apology of Catholicism or traditional dogma. Had it 
been so intended, it must have been regarded as very 
defective and incomplete, especially as far as concerns 
the divinity of Christ and the authority of the 
Church ". But this assertion does not fill the gap. 
He affirms that he takes '' the point of view of his- 
tory ", and doubtless he means that he has given all 
the testimony of history. Such testimony, however, 
is very far from the affirmations of traditional 
dogma, and above all from what has been hitherto 
believed to be the revelation and conviction of Jesus 
Himself. And yet, Loisy fails to explain at all how 
it is possible to secure an agreement between the faith 
in the traditional Catholic dogma and the new theory 
which he advances for the historical origin of the 
dogma on Christ's divinity. Whatever respect we may 
have for the author's talent, one cannot help re- 
marking that, in this instance, it betrayed serious 
defect. 

The false impression was deepened by Loisy's ven- 
turesome and utterly suspicious manner in expressing 
his ideas upon the possibility of a modern translation 
of ancient dogmatic formulas, and upon the oppor- 
tunity of a new explanation of dogma because of the 
progress made in the philosophic and historic sciences. 

" Any one who has followed the progress of Chris- 
tian thought from the beginning," he writes, " must 
perceive that neither the Christological dogma nor the 
dogma of grace, nor that of the Church is to be taken 
for a summit of doctrine, beyond which no prospect 
opens for the believer, or can ever open, except the 
dazzling perspective of infinite mystery; it is not to 
be expected that these dogmas will remain firmer than 



286 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the rock, inaccessible even to accidental change, and 
yet intelligible for all generations, and equally ap- 
plicable, without any new translation or explanation, 
to all states, and to every advance of science, life, and 
human society. . . . Reason never ceases to put 
questions to faith, and traditional formulas are sub- 
mitted to a constant work of interpretation wherein 

* the letter that killeth ' is effectively controlled by 

* the spirit that quickeneth '." ^ 

" The efforts of a healthy theology " he continues, 
" should be directed to a solution of the antinomy, pre- 
.sented by the unquestionable authority that faith de- 
mands for dogma, and the variability, the relativity, 
that the critic cannot fail to perceive in the history of 
dogmas and dogmatic formulas. ... It follows 
that a considerable change in the state of knowledge 
might render necessary a new interpretation of old 
formulas, which, conceived in another intellectual at- 
mosphere, no longer say what is necessary, or no 
longer say it suitably. . . . It is not indispensable 
to the authority of belief that it should be rigorously 
unchangeable in its intellectual form and its verbal 
expression. . . . The Church does not exact belief 
in its formulas as the adequate expression of absolute 
truth, but presents them as the least imperfect expres- 
sion that is morally possible. ... As all souls and 
all intelligences differ one from the other, the grada- 
tions of belief are also of infinite variety, under the 
sole direction of the Church, and in the unity of her 
creed ".^ 

We do not at all want to make Loisy say more than 
he meant to say. The terms of the declarations which 
have been mentioned are cleverly calculated and may 
admit of a strictly orthodox interpretation. All goes 
well, it would seem, when we maintain the immutable 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 2, 3. 

2 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 210, 211. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 287 

character of the truth, and object only to the relative 
imperfection of the formula; when we affirm the un- 
questionable authority of dogma, and plead only for 
improvement, for accidental modification in its expres- 
sion; when, finally, we proclaim the need of adhering 
to the Creed of the Church and to hold fast to the es- 
sential unity of the faith, and only admit variations 
in the mode which individuals employ in describing 
and proving that faith to themselves. In these pages 
of Loisy's work, however, the stress that he lays in a 
way upon the possibility of modifications in the inter- 
pretation of formulas leaves the vague impression that 
he had wanted to tell us different from what had 
hitherto been told by anybody. We may, for instance 
remark his new style of judging of the historical origin 
of dogmas, especially the dogma of the divinity of 
Christ, and we may anxiously ask if that *' new inter- 
pretation of old formulas ", rendered necessary by 
" a considerable change in the state of knowledge ". 
was not something else than an accidental change and 
a normal improvement. 

At least, as we believe, this is the impression which 
the author's pages have made upon a number of his 
most considerate readers. To offset that false impres- 
sion, it would seem that Loisy should have explained 
to his readers exactly what really was to be under- 
stood by that new interpretation of old formulas. 
Why did he neglect to do so? 

2. " ABOUT A LITTLE BOOK." 

Since the first edition of his work on " The Gospel 
and the Church " was published, Loisy has apparently 
endeavored to modify, or to complete it in many re- 
spects. Thus, in a later work entitled ''About a little 
Book " he feels the need, first of all, to state his behef 
in more precise terms. He is glad to have " spent his 
life in showing that the profession of Catholicism is 
compatible with the full play of reason and the un- 



288 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

trameled researches of criticism ". He feels honored 
to be ranked among " those who, while devoted to 
the scientific study of religion and anxious about the 
future welfare of Catholicity in France, claim to re- 
main sincere students and loyal servants of the 
Church ". Nor, especially, does he hesitate to make 
a public profession of his faith in Christ's divinity. 
" The Christological problem ", he says, '' which for 
ages has shaped the life and activity of the Church, is 
not to be examined as though it had never been dis- 
cussed and decided. We should not cast aside the 
experiences of the past. To suspect me of wanting to 
revive some antiquated system condemned by the 
ancient Councils, — this would be to greatly mistake 
my appreciation of the errors of former days and of 
present orthodoxy. The acquired knowledge of the 
past remains the teaching of the present: Christ is 
God according to the teaching of the faith ".^ 

Moreover, he undoubtedly means to reconcile his 
theory with orthodoxy ; for, in his new book, he seems 
to insist upon an element of the historic Christ which 
he had left unnoticed in his work on " The Gospel 
and the Church ". Thus, he speaks of '' the deep and 
undefinable mystery of His relationship with God; — 
a quite special relationship of union existing between 
God and the Man-Christ; a relation which is not the 
mere knowledge of the good God, but something in- 
finitely more mysterious and more profound : a species 
of intimate and ineffable permeation of the Man-Christ 
by God, as happened at the descent of the Holy Spirit 
upon Jesus when receiving Baptism. . . . Here is 
all that we find in the history of Christ ".^ 

We find the same idea expressed also in his work 
entitled "The Fourth Gospel". He tells us that 
" the divine mission of Christ, viewed as an historical 

^ Loisy, Autour d'un petit livre, p. xxxv. 
2Loisy, op. cit., pp. 117, 134, IS5- 



» 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 289 

fact, is explained by the circumstance that His Jewish 
habit of thought was enhvened by the conviction of a 
divine fiHation which we may say was unique and 
personal in the case of Jesus ". Again, in the same 
work, Loisy thus estimates the impression made upon 
him by the Synoptic Christ : " Throughout all His 
discourses, His deeds. His sorrows, we feel something 
divine uplifting him above mankind, even the best ".^ 

So too, in the second edition of *' The Gospel and 
the Church " not only does he insist that Jesus " for 
the faith is King and God eternally ", but in the name 
of history, he emphasizes anew " His unique relation- 
ship with God ", a relationship based " upon a sub- 
stantial communication of the divine Spirit, that is, 
of God Himself unto the predestined Messiah ".^ 

Of course, this new element brought into " the his- 
tory of Christ " has its importance. Why was it not 
pointed out in any way at all, when, previously, we 
were shown the veritable Christ of history? Why 
insist so complaisantly upon " the humble conditions " 
of Jesus' historic ministry, and so prominently uphold 
the reality of His humanity without in the least 
emphasizing the peculiar features of His person, 
of His words, and of His deeds, which, on the 
other hand, show " something divine ", a " quite 
special relationship of union " with God, a substantial 
communication of the divine Spirit " which is nov/ in- 
dicated to us after all that has been said before? 
Why, especially, instead of firmly adhering to these 
new observations, of setting forth their value, of mak- 
ing them the point of agreement between the incom- 
plete exposition in his first book and the fulness of 
Catholic doctrine, — why be content to notice them 
casually in a brief, general formula? Why, more- 
over, try to weaken their meaning in the context, and 

1 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 38, 2d ed. 

2 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 51, 125. 

19 



290 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

bring them finally to the former insufficient conclu- 
sions which they were apparently meant to correct? 

If, then, we are not satisfied with the mere appear- 
ance of words, but are seeking for the author's real 
thought beneath somewhat obscure and equivocal 
terms, the following facts appear to be quite evident. 
On the one hand, " we find in the history of Christ " 
that there was " a unique communication of the divine 
life ", a '' species of intimate and ineffable permeation 
of the Man-Christ by God ". But, on the other hand, 
we are made to plainly understand that the idea of 
Christ's divinity is not at all encountered by Loisy in 
the Saviour's own teaching. After remarking, and 
somewhat justly, that '' the divinity of Jesus is not a 
fact of Gospel history which is verifiable, critically 
speaking, as to its reality, but . . . the definition 
of the relationship existing between Christ and God, 
that is, a belief, the origin and development of which 
the historian can simply ascertain ", he continues " : 
" This belief would be a part of the teaching of Jesus, 
and it should be recognized by the historian, if the 
Fourth Gospel was a direct echo of the Saviour's 
preaching, and if the saying in the Synoptists about 
" the Father who alone knoweth the Son and the Son 
who alone knoweth the Father " was not a product of 
tradition. But the Fourth Gospel is a book of mystic 
theology wherein is heard the voice of the Christian 
conscience, and not the Christ of history ; and in *' The 
Gospel and the Church ", I have explained why the 
text of Matthew and of Luke is very likely a fruit 
of theological speculation, the work of a Christian 
prophet, like the Fourth Gospel ".^ 

In Loisy's opinion, then, the historical Christ never 
in the least manifested Himself as the true Son of 
God. He also gives us to understand, even more 
plainly than he did in his other book, that Christ was 

1 Loisy, Autour, p. 130. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



291 



never at all aware of being the true Son of God and 
true God. 

*' Is it not true ", he says, " that the conciliation of 
this theory with history would not be without its diffi- 
culties if we would have the theory to be the exact 
expression of history? When Jesus answers a man 
who had called Him ' Good Master ', it is by the re- 
mark : ' Why call you Me good ? None is good but 
one, that is, God '. And when He makes that act of 
resignation : ' Father, not what I will, but what Thou 
wilt ', the natural sense of the words does not agree 
with the theory, and, besides, the Fourth Gospel does 
not assign such sayings to Him. The critic may, then, 
suspect the authenticity of these declarations which, 
in any supposition, would correspond to a Christology 
other than that of S. John; for the theory does not 
teach us anything about the Saviour's inner life. In 
itself, the dogma is a doctrinal construction which 
theologians are inclined to interpret as a psychological 
reality: but, for the occasion, they create a special 
psychology which, in fact, is no psychology at all, 
since its basis is not observation but reasoning due to 
an unhistoric interpretation of the Gospel. The theo- 
logian conceives of two distinct intelligences and wills, 
of a sort of double consciousness, the one above the 
other and, as it were, possessing a reciprocal penetra- 
tion : the human faculty is entirely subordinated to the 
"divine, and the Man-Christ, although fully aware of 
his humanity, is also aware of being God. ... If 
at all authorized, this theory needs to be explained, 
especially nowadays, by the exegetical theologian, 
rather than it furnishes light for the historical inter- 
pretation of the Gospel ".^ 

Loisy is so unequivocal in his manner of represent- 
ing the consciousness of the historical Christ that we 
know full well the meaning of the following remarks : 

1 Mk. X. 17-18; xiv. 36; Loisy, Autour, pp. 148-149. 



292 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

" Jesus, while living on earth ", he says, *' was aware 
of His humanity, and He spoke and acted according 
to such conviction. He lived in the full knowledge of 
His Messianic vocation, and taught in accordance with 
what Hght He had of this vocation. His discourses, 
His conduct, the attitude of His disciples and enemies, 
all show that Christ was a man among men, ' in all 
things like to them, except sin ' : we may even add, 
except the intimate and undefinable mystery of His 
relationship with God. This relationship is expressed 
in the idea of Messiah ".^ 

We may at first ask ourselves if in Loisy's mind 
the restriction ** except the intimate and undefinable 
mystery of His relationship with God ", as also the 
expression, " except sin ", refers to an element in 
Christ which was only afterwards perceived by the 
Christian conscience, or rather an element which is 
positively attested by the Gospel history and of which 
Christ had shown Himself to be aware? But the 
analogous and unequivocal reflections found in the 
context leave no room for deception: in Loisy's 
opinion, the historical Christ was aware of his rela- 
tionship with God only in so far as He was aware of 
His character as God's representative for the estab- 
lishment and government of the Kingdom of Heaven. 
And it is wholly in this sense that he says : " this 
relationship is expressed in the idea of Messiah ". 

We find elsewhere a more explicit statement: 
" Critically interpreted, the Gospel shows that Jesus 
preached the advent of the Kingdom of Heaven, and 
that He made Himself known to His disciples and to 
His judges as the Messiah foretold to Israel. As to 
what was really the Kingdom of Heaven, and what 
was meant by the title Messiah, Son of God, I have 
shown it as clearly as could be, while refraining, as I 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 116-117. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



293 



should, from introducing later theological speculations 
into the teachings of the Saviour ".^ 

What can be plainer than this? In Loisy's estima- 
tion, the Christ of the Gospels reveals Himself only 
as the Messiah, and the Messiah, as Loisy has con- 
stantly and clearly stated, is only " the principal agent 
and predestined head of the Kingdom ", and the Son 
of God in the sense that " He alone is the vicar of 
God for the Kingdom of Heaven ". 

It is, therefore, this and only this Messianic relation- 
ship, displaying itself through the " providential func- 
tion " which is to be exercised only at the end of 
time, that is implied in the " quite special relationship 
of union " existing between the Man-Christ and God. 
Naught more is supposed to be found in the Saviour's 
personal teaching nor in His historic consciousness. 
We see clearly, then, what to think of the following 
observations of Loisy, if we only take the trouble of 
looking through the outer veil of words : 

" The Gospel idea of the Messiah ", he tells us, 
" contains, in principle, the entire Christological de- 
velopment. It really implies the eternal predestination 
of Him who was to appear in this world as the Son 
of God, and also His final exaltation, and even, as an 
intermediary condition for predestination and glory, a 
quite special relationship of union between God and 
the Alan-Christ: a relation implying not merely the 
knowledge of the good God, but something far more 
mysterious and profound, namely, a sort of intimate 
and ineffable penetration of the Man-Christ by God, 
such as was visibly symbolized by the descent of the 
Holy Ghost upon the baptized Jesus. The vocation of 
Jesus is not that of a prophet : it is unique in its kind, 
both as a providential mission and as a grace of God. 
A unique predestination of a human being for a unique 
role for which this human being (Christ) is fitted by 

1 Loisy, op. cit., p. 131, 



294 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

a unique communication of divine life that buds forth 
into a unique perfection of faith, hope, and love: this, 
is all we find in Christ's history." ^ 

Let us state the case with the greatest precision: 
'' The Gospel idea of the Messiah, we are told, implies 
the eternal predestination of Him who was to appear 
in this world as the Son of God ". Yes, to be sure ; 
but " eternal predestination " is not necessarily eternal 
pre-existence. The former imphes ideal pre-existence 
in God's intelligence and will, while the latter implies 
eternal existence in the real sense of the word; nor 
is this latter at all implied in the former. For, although 
the Man-Christ had been predestined, in the divine 
plan, to become the Son of God as Head of the Mes- 
sianic Kingdom, it does not logically follow that He 
pre-existed eternally before His advent into this world, 
as true Son of God in God. 

On the other hand, the Gospel idea of the Messiah, 
such as Loisy has explained it, does not positively 
imply " a relationship of union between God and the 
Man-Christ " other than that of His " providential 
function " as " vicar of God for the Kingdom of 
Heaven ". If, as Loisy claims, Jesus only gave 
Himself as the *' Ruler " and " Sole Maker " of the 
Kingdom, He really did not reveal that He had ex- 
perienced an *' intimate and ineffable penetration " of 
Himself '' by God " ; nor, strictly speaking, did He 
manifest that " unique communication of the divine 
life " supposed to be found in the history of Christ. 
If He has revealed it. He must have spoken otherwise 
than Loisy makes Him speak. His statements would 
point beyond that mere " eschatological role ", beyond 
that mere " providential function " in which, it is al- 
leged, is centered the Gospel idea of the Messiah Son 
of God. 

At all events, to affirm that the dogma of Christ's 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 133-134; cf. The Gospel and the Church, 
p. 51. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



295 



divinity " existed in germ in the idea " which Loisy has 
given us of " the Messiah Son of God ", to pretend 
that the " Gospel idea of the Messiah contains, in 
principle, the entire Christological development " seems 
to be a mere play upon words. He tells us, that " the 
divinity of Christ is a dogma which has grown in the 
Christian conscience, although it is not expressly for- 
mulated in the Gospel, it exists only in germ in the 
notion of Messiah, Son of God ".^ 

The Gospel idea, indeed, serves as the basis for the 
dogma, but this basis is wholly extrinsic and without 
any natural bearing upon the dogma : it does not con- 
tain it either in germ or in principle. It does not con- 
tain it as the root does the germ which shall normally 
develop into a tree with trunk and branches, but rather 
as the spike fixed in the wall contains the first link 
of the chain which is attached to it. 

The Gospel idea of the Messiah does not contain 
in principle the dogma of the Christ-God because its 
essential constitutive elements, namely, Christ's eternal 
pre-existence. His real participation in God's nature, 
are not taken from the Gospel idea : they do not issue 
therefrom as though previously contained in it, they 
are introduced from without. So true is this that, 
by the adaptation of these new and extrinsic elements, 
the Gospel idea becomes totally transformed; it is 
Hke a great hiatus, a radical separation between the 
former idea which means one thing and the second 
idea which implies another ; between the Christ of the 
Gospel, the simply privileged Messiah of God, and the 
Christ of the Christian conscience, the true Son of 
God and true God. 

In vain does Loisy say : " Theological endeavor 
does not start outside of history and from mere specu- 
lation. The Greek explanation is not made aside from 
the initial- fact; it rests upon the fact and coincides 

1 Loisy, op. cit., p. 117. 



296 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

therewith; we may also say that it issues from it. 
. . . The character of the Johannine thought is not 
Jewish, but the substance of that thought was in the 
Synoptists, and the thought of the Synoptists reflects 
what we may be allowed to call the Psychological con- 
sciousness of Jesus. No break of continuity is notice- 
able between the fact and its interpretation. The one 
is not a fiction foreign to the other ; nor, on the other 
hand, does the Gospel fact when well understood, go 
against the theological interpretation, if it be taken 
for what it is worth, nor does it destroy this latter. 
. . . The persuasion which Jesus had of His union 
with God is wholly undefinable. It is enough to show 
that the expression which He Himself has given of 
it is substantially equivalent, as far as we can see, to 
the ecclesiastical definition ".^ 

Such kind of language appears to us like a mirage 
and a sophism if it be used in the hypothesis of Loisy. 
For, to pretend to find " the substance " of the Johan- 
nine thought, " the substance " of Church definitions 
on the Christ-God in the Gospel facts such as they are 
set forth in the author's books, implies a deception and 
a use of words against their obvious sense. If, as is af- 
firmed, *' the psychological consciousness " of Jesus, as 
" reflected in the thought of the Synoptists " made him 
aware only of his quality of Messiah, the predestined 
Head of the Kingdom; if the declarations made by 
the historic Christ do not express a relationship of a 
far more excellent kind between Himself and God, and 
rightly and logically expressed by the idea of His real 
participation in God's very being, it were false to allege 
a " substantial " equivalence between the Gospel fact 
and its theological interpretation. 

No doubt, we may well believe that Christ, although 
God in the fullest sense, maintained a kind of reserve 
in revealing His divinity. Nor may we at all refuse 

^ Loisy, op. cit, pp. 135, 138. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 297 

to concede that '' the divinity of Christ "... is a 
dogma that was not expressly formulated in the Gos- 
pel ", or that *' the theology of the Incarnate Word " 
is not found therein " formally ". Says Loisy, " It is 
claimed that the theology of the Incarnate Word is 
connected with the Gospel of Jesus. It is, indeed, in 
a way connected therewith, although it be not contained 
therein. The imperious desire of theologians cannot 
make us find it there in its formal expression." We 
may also add with Loisy : " We are not surprised that 
the historical Christ gave no definition of His person 
and of His role according to the methods of Greek 
thought ".1 

The theology of the Incarnate Word, however, must 
be logically connected with the Gospel and really con- 
tained therein under one form or other, Christ must 
have been truly aware of His divinity and must have, 
in some manner, positively suggested the idea of the 
essential transcendence of His union with God, if there 
be any reason for claiming that " the Greek explana- 
tion . . . issues from the initial fact ", and that 
" the expression " given by Jesus as to His conviction 
of being united with God is " equivalent substantially 
... to the ecclesiastical definition ". 

If Christ were not truly aware of His substantial 
union with God; if His psychological consciousness 
were limited to the idea of His Messiahship, such as 
Loisy has explained it to us, we could not say that the 
theological dogma issues from the Gospel fact like a 
plant from its germ, but rather as a plant from the 
soil wherein it lies, or as a flower from its surrounding 
vase. Between the one and the other there is only a 
material relation, there is only an exterior agreement, 
without, however, a dependence of origin founded 
upon their nature. 

We are told that " the Greek explanation is not 

1 ]Loisy, op. cit., p. 117; cf. Le Quatr. Evang., p. 138. 



298 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

made aside from the initial fact " ; that, in a manner, 
'' it rests upon the fact " ; and nevertheless, in its sub- 
stance, in its essential elements it is foreign to this 
initial fact and wholly separate from its basis. For, 
the dogma expresses an idea different from the Gospel 
idea, — a second idea in no way contained in the first. 
It is not really an interpretation, but a new construc- 
tion. The explanation given of the Gospel fact does 
not place in proper light the elements which it con- 
tains, since it is understood that the Gospel fact his- 
orically speaking, does not contain them. The very 
essential parts of the dogma, and not merely the acci- 
dental ones, are constructed by means of elements that 
are foreign to " the personal teaching of Christ ", and 
furnished only by faith. The Christian conscience did 
not draw from the Gospel what was historically con- 
tained therein: its endeavor was not confined to dis- 
covering and formulating what was latent and implicit 
in the Saviour's discourses. It put there what was not 
there; it drew from its behef ; and it is the edifice of 
the faith that was built in its entirety upon the base 
of the fact through a sort of extrinsic superposition, 
without, however, the Gospel fact being destined for 
this construction nor, even, critically speaking, sus- 
ceptible of receiving it. 

Has it not, indeed, been claimed by Rationalists that 
the idea of the Christ-God was due to the fact that 
the Gospel expression, Son of God, had been taken 
in a wrong sense by Greek Christians and interpreted 
to mean a real divine Sonship by those who did not 
perceive the general and figurative meaning attached 
to it in the Hebrew and Aramaic languages? If we 
had to admit that the dogma of the divinity of Christ 
arose from such an erroneous interpretation, we might 
perhaps still say, to borrow Loisy's words, that the 
explanation was not made " aside from the fact ", but 
even " based upon the fact " ? But could we say that 
" it coincides therewith ", that " it issues from it ", 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



299 



that it was therein contained " in germ " and " sub- 
stantially '■ ? Assuredly not. And the reason is plain : 
between the fact and its interpretation there would be 
a " real break of continuity " ; the Gospel fact having 
its own meaning while the interpretation given thereto 
would have a different one. 

In Loisy's theory, the case is somewhat similar, the 
difference being that he finds that the meaning given 
to the facts by the theological interpretation thereof 
is founded upon faith. But it remains true, however, 
that such a meaning was, historically speaking, foreign 
to the Gospel fact, and that, critically viewed, it was 
not even contained therein. So that, on the one hand, 
we have the fact with its own meaning and, on the 
other, the interpretation whereby this fact receives a 
new meaning, a sense by no means warranted in his- 
tory but resting upon faith. Between the fact and its 
interpretation, whatever Loisy may say, there is, critic- 
ally speaking, a " real break of continuity": from the 
fact to its interpretation the way, indeed, is found 
only by faith. 

For the interpretation of Gospel facts, faith can as- 
suredly offer elements unknown to history, which go be- 
yond the formula admitted by critics and which impart 
thereto a meaning that they could not suspect. Thus, 
a direct inspiration from God, or a special assistance 
of His providence may reveal to faith what science 
cannot discern. But if this were so in the case viewed 
by Loisy, he would at all events have to cease looking 
in history for what faith alone can supply. The dogma 
of Christ's divinity would, then, no longer rest upon the 
Gospel; it would no longer rest upon the Saviour's 
personal testimony. The dogma would have only an 
extrinsic basis upon the fact of history; its essential 
elements would come only from faith ; and, against 
the data of faith, there would stand this difficulty, which 
if not peremptory, is assuredly annoying and startling 
enough, namely, the strange instance of a God-Man 
Christ who was not aware of being God ! 



300 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

" The gravity of the problem," says Loisy, '' does 
not escape me in the least ; nor have I stated it without 
due reflexion ". Still, he thinks that such critical 
hypotheses are compatible with dogma; for he affirms 
that '' the believing historian perceives naught in these 
facts to disturb his faith. And he reasons thus : " The 
natural representation of things as they appear to the 
observer's view is fully compatible with their super- 
natural explanation. This explanation, however, is 
not a matter of history. . . . All such historical re- 
searches tend only to verify and to represent facts 
which, in turn, cannot contradict any dogma precisely 
because they are facts and because the dogmas them- 
selves are ideas that represent the faith which seeks, 
not the humanly knowable, but the divinely incom- 
prehensible ".^ 

Thus, in his estimation, dogma would be wholly in- 
dependent of facts. No conflict could occur between 
the one and the other because the one sprang from 
science and the other from faith; because there is be- 
tween science and faith a closed wall, as it were, and 
an entirely separate domain. We do not care to dis- 
cuss the reasons for this general view of the relation- 
ship between science and faith, between fact and 
dogma; but we may be allowed to remind Loisy that, 
although the object of faith be " the divinely incompre- 
hensible ", it must also have a basis in " the humanly 
knowable ". Dogma, indeed, is not as independent of 
fact as he would wish it to be. In fact, he speaks of 
the divinity of Jesus as " a belief " of which the his- 
torian " can verify the origin and development ", and 
he endeavors to ascertain if this belief does or does not 
belong to the Saviour's teaching.^ 

" The persuasion which Jesus had of His union with 
God," he rightly remarks, " is wholly undefinable ". 

^ Loisy, Autour d'un petit Uvre, pp. ii, 51, 132, 150. 
2 Loisy, op. cit., p. 130, 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



301 



I 



And yet this fact itself does not prevent him from 
investigating the " expression which He himself has 
given of it ", nor from asserting that he deems it 
" substantially equivalent " to the dogma. So that, he 
is somewhat convinced that dogma may be founded 
upon fact, and that, in particular, the dogma of Christ's 
divinity might rest upon Jesus' personal testimony.^ 

Loisy does not, indeed, admit Jesus' testimony on 
this point ; but he cannot rightly refuse to do so. He 
does not believe that Jesus has testified to His real 
divinity; but he cannot deny that, if the Saviour had 
done so. His word would be a solid foundation, his- 
torically speaking, for our faith in His divinity. Let 
it be granted, for a moment, that, as he says, " the 
divinity of Christ, even if taught by Jesus Himself, 
would not be a fact of history but a religious and 
moral fact, of which we become certain in the same 
way as we do of the existence of God, and not by the 
mere investigation of the Gospel testimony ". He will 
grant us, I hope, that it is not at all an indifferent 
matter whether or not Christ has taught this truth; 
that the reality of the Gospel testimony which is an 
historical fact is not without its importance to give our 
certitude a reasonable basis and serve as a motive of 
credibility for that religious fact known as the divinity 
of Christ.2 

In a word, to deny, in the name of history, that the 
Saviour attested His divinity, and even that He was 
aware of it, is to ruin, not directly faith in the Christ- 
God, but one of the most reliable and rational grounds 
upon which our faith has hitherto stood. 

It would seem, however that Loisy's faith in this 
dogma remains unshaken. Evidently, it can not be a 
castle in the air: it must have a foundation; and this 
basis he, like any theologian, seeks to find in the facts : 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 137-138. 

2 Loisy, op. cit., p. 215. 



302 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

so true it is that between the fact and the dogma there 
is not that radical separation which the critics allege. 
" Does not faith in the divinity of Christ ", he asks, 
*' rest also on the divine influence w^hich he has never 
ceased to exert upon souls, even despite the strictly 
Jewish sense which is still attached to His quality of 
Messiah, and although the formal definition of His 
divinity was only developed progressively in Christian 
tradition." ^ 

Thus, in Loisy's estimation, faith in Christ's divinity 
would rest upon the humanly observable fact of " the 
divine influence " which Christ has never ceased to 
exert upon souls. Moreover, it is this very influence 
of Christ, historically evident, guiding the Church in 
the beginning, and acting therein in order to per- 
petuate it until the end of time, that rationally estab- 
lishes our belief in the divinity of the Church. It is 
thus, at least, that we may likely interpret the follow- 
ing slightly enigmatic words of the author. " The 
divine institution of the Church ", he says, is founded 
upon the divinity of Christ, which itself is not a fact 
of history but a fact of the faith attested by the 
Church and which, from the very beginning of the 
Church, appears, we may say, in the birth and the 
perpetuity of the Church. ... To the historian 
who limits himself to the consideration of observable 
facts, it is faith in Christ which has founded the 
Church ; from the view-point of the faith, it is Christ 
Himself, living for the faith and thereby accomplishing 
what the historian sees realized ".^ 

We do not think that Loisy means that faith is 
absolutely independent of observable facts: he plainly 
recognizes that the fact is a rational basis for the 
faith. The historian shows that the Church's founda- 
tion and perpetuity practically rest upon belief in the 

1 Loisy, op. cit., p, ii6. 

2 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 162, 172. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



303 



[ 



Christ-God; the historian-philosopher judges that the 
truth of the belief is guaranteed by the very character 
of the fact observed, that is, by the perceptible marks 
of Christ's living and incessant influence; but it re- 
mains for the believer to make the act of faith in 
Christ's real divinity, and, at the same time, in the 
divinity of that Church wherein He has never ceased 
to live and to act. 

Thus understood, Loisy's apologetic work is not 
without its value. We are very far from contesting 
that Christ's influence makes itself perceptibly felt in 
the life of the Church from the first and throughout 
the course of its history, just as it has not ceased to 
be felt in the Ufe of souls. This is a very sound proof, 
and one on which we cannot insist too strongly, of 
the truth of our faith. Loisy might have also observed 
that Christ's divinity and that of the Church rest upon 
the sohd basis of the rational necessity of admitting a 
personal God who watches over men and approves of 
a positive religion; for, at present, whoever sincerely 
seeks this personal God, and whoever wishes to go to 
Christ, knows well that He can be found only in the 
Church. 

It remains true, none the less, that in presenting the 
moral proof, — drawn from the influence exerted by 
Chrisrt, — as the only rational basis for faith in His 
divinity, Loisy deprives this faith of one of its firmest 
foundations, namely, Christ's historic testimony to the 
fact that He was aware of His divinity. 

Moreover Loisy goes counter to what until now has 
been the general teaching of theologians concerning 
the psychological consciousness of the Christ God. 
What he advances is indeed a complete revolution in 
the manner of conceiving the Saviour's interior at- 
titude towards God and Jesus' own declarations as to 
this attitude. We will perceive how serious all this is 
after reading the author's venturesome and too often 
repeated remarks. 



304 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



" The progress of history ", he says, sets forth in 
new terms the problem of Christ . . . What dis- 
turbs the minds of the faithful as regards Christ's 
divinity and ' His infallible knowledge ' is the fact that 
it is impossible to reconcile the natural meaning of the 
most certain Gospel texts with what theologians teach, 
or seem to teach, concerning Jesus' consciousness and 
knowledge. . . . And as to the interpretation of 
texts, is not a reasonable exegesis impossible, if we 
do not admit, first of all, that the Church's actual 
teaching, which serves as the standard for the theo- 
logian and the Catholic preacher, is distinct from the 
historic sense of Scripture?" ^ 

" The biblical question ", he continues, " pertains to 
the important question of the intellectual formation of 
Catholics, to the question of the intellectual regime of 
the Church. . , . Catholicism will become, by the 
force of circumstances, what it should not be, namely, 
a party, nay a reactionary party, given over to in- 
curable decay and fatal ruin, as long as ecclesiastical 
teaching shall apparently want to impose upon our 
minds a view of the world and human history that is 
not in accord with the results of scientific endeavor 
during the last centuries. . . . The crisis (of the 
faith) is born of that opposition which ardent minds 
perceive between the theological and the scientific 
spirit, between what is presented as Catholic truth and 
what is more and more presented as the truth of 
science. . . . It is begotten within the field of 
religious history through the obstinacy of present dog- 
matism in rejecting the evidence of facts and the 
legitimacy of the critical method ".^ 

Such bitter reflections, mingled as they are with 
accusations so unseemly, and coming from a believing 
critic, are serious enough. But he goes on to say that 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. xxiii, xxv, 64-65. 

2 Loisy, op. cit., pp. xxxiv, 216-217. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



305 



i 



" facts are facts, and, if so, the first conclusion to be 
drawn therefrom is that they are naught else. A 
mountain of syllogisms can avail nothing against a 
grain of nature's sand. It is simply a question whether 
" The Gospel and the Church " represents the Gospel 
fact in sufficient conformity with reality. ... If 
that explanation is defective, it is by efforts of a 
similar and more satisfactory kind that its imperfec- 
tions may be corrected. Even if it were radically 
false, we should still have to seek the true explanation 
of the ancient facts and to show how the doctrine of 
the Church does not contradict them. . . . We 
must strengthen the faith in Christ's divinity by inter- 
preting the Gospel and the documents of ecclesiastical 
antiquity in accordance with the rules which are nowa- 
days usually applied to all human texts, and by taking 
into account the progress of contemporary thought in 
the philosophic order ".^ 

Accordingly, at Loisy's invitation, we will ascertain 
if the facts are really such as he has given them, if 
his representation of the Gospel fact is integral and 
exact, or, on the contrary, if it is incomplete, inade- 
quate as regards the entire sacred testimony, and, as a 
consequence, without sufficient conformity to the full 
reality. 

This study demands a minute and complete exami- 
nation of the contents of the Synoptic Gospels, and, 
undoubtedly, it also requires a particularly careful and 
well-balanced interpretation of their testimony. For, 
may it not be, that Jesus was really aware of His 
divine origin and nature, that He really manifested 
His own divinity, and that, nevertheless. He sur- 
rounded this manifestation with some discretion and 
reserve ; that He did not publish this secret openly 
and as plainly as his disciples were to do it one day? 
Such an attitude on His part should not surprise us. 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. xxviii, 114. 
20 



306 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Jesus' reserve in manifesting His Messiahship must 
have been even surpassed when He revealed Himself 
as the true Son of God. As regards His Messiahship, 
in fact, had He not revealed it rather by His works 
than by His formal declarations; had He not led His 
disciples to gradually form their conviction on this 
matter by a personal experience in order that after- 
wards they might proclaim it freely ? Should He not, 
therefore, have cast even a deeper veil over the incom- 
parably more astounding mystery of His divine nature, 
and led them to believe in it rather through insinua- 
tions and suggestive declarations, the full sense of 
which would be disclosed at an opportune time? As- 
suredly, this inference is quite legitimate. 

Let us, therefore, take up the first three Gospels and 
endeavor to submit to the most attentive as well as 
most loyal criticism the testimony that is found therein 
concerning the person of Jesus. 

HI. The Divinity of Christ in the Synoptists. 

I. THE special significance OF JESUS' STATEMENTS 
AS TO HIS DIGNITY, PRIVILEGES, AND POWERS. 

A striking feature of the Gospels is the unusual 
character and import of Our Lord's declarations con- 
cerning His dignity, privileges, and powers. As we 
have seen, naught is more surprising than the manner 
in which He places Himself above every creature. 
Greater than the most illustrious personages of the 
Old Law ; greater than Jonas or Solomon ; greater 
than David who had called Him his Lord; greater 
than Moses or EHas who appeared beside Him on the 
Mount of Transfiguration; greater even than John 
the Baptist, whose dignity as Precursor ranked him 
above the sons of men; yea, greater than the Angels 
of God, — thus does Jesus reveal Himself. In fact, 
after the Temptation, in the desert, the angels come 
to minister unto Him: He has but to say one word. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



307 



and His Father will send them to His aid in a dozen 
legions. Nor are they merely His Father's angels : 
they are His also; they are His messengers, His ser- 
vitors, the executors of His will. At the last Advent, 
they shall form His escort of honor. He shall com- 
mand them Himself; He shall send them into His 
harvest in order to separate the wheat from the chaff, 
to assemble the just, His chosen people, from the 
four parts of the earth. When, also, there is question 
of drawing a line between man, the angels. Himself, 
and His Father, He ranks Himself above the angels 
and takes His position at the right hand of God. " Of 
that day or hour no man knoweth ", says He ; 
** neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son ; but the 
Father ".^ 

It has been remarked, indeed, by Dalman that the 
words : *' nor the Son ; but the Father " are a later 
addition to the text; but we think it hardly credible 
that the Church subsequently thought of attributing 
to the Saviour a declaration which might appear to 
imply an attack upon the universal extent of His 
knowledge.^ 

The Saviour, undoubtedly, assumes qualities, 
powers, and authority such as seemingly place Him 
wholly above and beyond mankind, and very close to 
God. He demands as had never been done before, 
nor could have been demanded by any mere man, 
that His followers manifest both for His gospel and 
person a faith, an obedience, and a love such as might 
entail the renouncement of every contrary affection, 
and the sacrifice of the most precious goods, — nay 
of Hfe itself: and in return. He promises the greatest 
rewards for all eternity. " If any man will follow 

1 Mk. i. 13; Mt. iv. 4, II ; Mt. xxvi. 53; Mt. xiii. 41 ; xvi. 27; 
Mt. xxiv. 31; Mk. xiii. 27; Mk. viii. 38; Lk. ix. 26; Mt. xxv. 
31 ; Mk. xiii. 32. 

2 Dalman, op. cit., p. 194; Schmiedel, art.: In Prot. Monats- 
hefte, 1900, p. 20; Bovon, Theol. du N. T., vol. i, p. 425; 
Schmidt, art.: Son of God, E. B., par. 14, col. 4698. 



3o8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

me ", He says, " let Him deny himself, and take up 
his cross, and follow me. For, whosoever will save 
his life, shall lose it ; and whosoever shall lose his Hfe 
for my sake and the gospel, shall save it ". Again : 
" Every one therefore that shall confess me before 
men, I will also confess him before my Father who 
is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, 
I will also deny him before my Father who is in 
heaven." . . . He that loveth father or mother 
more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that 
loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy 
of me. And he that taketh not up his cross, and 
followeth me, is not worthy of me ". So too, we are 
told : " Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and 
persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, 
untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice for your 
reward is very great in heaven. For so they perse- 
cuted the prophets that were before you ". And 
again we read: *' Amen I say to you, there is no 
man who hath left house or brethren, or sisters, or 
father, or mother, or children, or lands, for my sake 
and for the gospel, who shall not receive a hundred 
times as much, now in this time : houses, and brethren, 
and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with 
persecutions : and, in the world to come, life ever- 
lasting ".^ 

Jesus, moreover, as we have already noticed, de- 
clares Himself to be *' the Lord of the Sabbath ". In 
fact. He assumes exceptional authority over the Old 
Law. In a way. He places Himself upon an equality 
with the divine Lawgiver of Sinai, and, in His own 
name, interprets, specifies, and perfects the traditional 
commandments. Thus, He says : *' You have heard 
that it was said to them of old . . . but, I say 
to you ".2 

1 Mk. vi ii. 34, 21^ ; Mt. xvi. 24, 25 ; Lk. ix. 22,, 24 ; Mt. x. 2)^, 
ZZ, 37-38; Lk. xiv. 26-27, 31; Mt. V. 11-12; Mk, x. 29-30; Mt. 
xix. 28-29; Lk. xviii. 29-30. 

2 Mt. V. 22y 28, 32, 34, 39, 44. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 309 

He also heals the sick, casts out demons, and com- 
mands the elements of the natural world in His own 
name and by His authority. He can work miracles 
because of a " power " which, though hidden, is per- 
ceptibly and personally experienced by all who draw 
near to Him. He does not, indeed, act apart from the 
Spirit of God, but His divine power is so special to 
Him as to be seemingly identified with Him. He 
says but one word, and all obey Him: as when He 
said : " Damsel, I say to thee, Arise ", and the daughter 
of Jairus returned to life ; or, again, " Speak no more : 
and go out of the man ", and the demon at once left 
him; or, at another time: "Peace, be still!" where- 
upon the wind ceased, and there was a great calm 
upon the Sea of Galilee.^ 

So eminently, indeed, does Jesus possess the power 
of performing miracles that He imparts to His 
disciples the gift of working the like wonders by His 
authority and in His name. To the twelve He says : 
"Going, preach, saying: The Kingdom of Heaven is 
at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the 
lepers, cast out devils : freely have you received, freely 
give ". And they immediately go forth upon their 
mission of preaching penance: many demons do they 
indeed expel, and, by anointing the sick with oil, they 
restore them to health. So that, in turn, they may 
joyfully assure the Saviour : " Lord, the devils also 
are subject to us in thy name!" And, even after 
Pentecost, it is still " in the name of" Jesus Christ of 
Nazareth that the apostles perform many miracles 
and prodigies.^ 

A still more unusual power assumed by Jesus is 

1 Mt. xii. 28 ; Lk. xi. 20 ; Mk. v. 30 ; Lk. vi. 19 ; Mk. v. 41 ; 
Lk. viii. 54; Mk. i. 25; Lk. iv. 35; Mk iv. 39; Mt. viii. 27; 
Lk. viii. 25. 

2Mk. iii. 15; vi. 7; Mt. x. i; Lk. ix. i, 2; Mt. x. 8; cf. Mk. 
xvi. 17; Mt. vi. 13; Lk. ix. 6; cf. Mk. ix. 37; Lk. x. 17; cf, 
Mk. ix. 38; Ac. iii. 6, 16; iy. 10, 30; ix. 34; xvi. 18, 



3IO CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

that of purifying the human soul through the forgive- 
ness of sins. He does not deny that this is a divine 
privilege; and yet He asserts His power in this re- 
spect and gives striking proofs of possessing it. We 
may well suppose that His remarkable miracles in the 
order of nature are a guarantee for the truth of His 
miracles in the invisible order. God alone can for- 
give sins. Be it so. And yet, the " Son of Man " 
asserts and proves that He has, even on this earth, 
the power of forgiving sins. What, then, are we to 
conclude unless it be that God abides within this very 
" Son of Man " because of the authority and entirely 
incommunicable powers which He gives Him? Upon 
the soul-world, as upon the corporeal sphere, God 
acts in and through Jesus. Such is the implied 
reasoning of the Jews themselves in asking the ques- 
tion : " Who is He that can forgive sins ?" Neverthe- 
less, Jesus goes even further. He asserts His right 
to directly impart to others this very power of for- 
giving sins precisely because He is aware that He 
enjoys it Himself by reason of His divine personal 
authority : and it may be noted that His declaration as 
found in S. Matthew is analogous to that in the 
Fourth Gospel. In the one we read : " Amen I say 
to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall 
be bound also in heaven ; and whatsoever you shall 
loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven " ; and, 
in the other : " Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose 
sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and 
whose sins you shall retain, they are retained ".^ 

To this unheard-of claim to pardon sins we must 
add the no less apparently exorbitant right which 
Jesus assumes of being one day the supreme judge of 
the living and the dead. He is not content to call 
Himself that redeemer of mankind " who is come to 

1 Mt. xviii i8; Jo. xx, 22; cf. Mk. i. 10; Mt. ix. 6; Lk. v. 
24; Lk. xix. 10; cf. Mt. xviii. 11; Greek Textus Receptus and 
Vulgate. 



lESUS THE SON OF GOD 311 

save what was lost ", and " to give His life as a 
ransom for many " ; He is not content with striving to 
rule the world by His teaching and virtuous example, 
or to leave after Him followers with whom He prom- 
ised to be all days even to the consummation of 
the world: no, this is not enough; He promises to 
come, at the end of days, even as the supreme judge of 
the living and the dead; He foretells His appearance 
at that time in all the splendor of His divine glory, 
attended by the holy angels and sharing the full power 
of His Father, and, as judge of the human race, pro- 
nouncing, in His own name, the final sentence of ever- 
lasting life or death upon each individual soul ! ^ 

And, as a last promise, Jesus tells His apostles that 
He will send the Holy Spirit upon them; and His 
manner of making this promise shows plainly how 
far He enjoys God's confidence and shares the divinest 
privileges and powers. It was by the action of the 
Holy Ghost that He had been conceived and had 
assumed human nature within the womb of Mary, 
His Immaculate Mother, and had been, at His bap- 
tism in the Jordan, solemnly proclaimed the Son of 
God. All His deeds are influenced by the same Holy 
Spirit by whose power He also heals the sick and 
casts out demons. And yet, wonderful to tell, He has 
authority over this very same Holy Spirit; and He 
shall fully exert this power after entering upon the 
possession of His Father's glory on Ascension day. 
The Father, indeed, promises this Holy Spirit to Him, 
but it is really He who shall send it upon His own 
beloved apostles.^ 

To His chosen twelve He says : " I send the promise 

1 Mk. X. 45; Mt. XX. 28; Mk. viii. 38; Mt. x. 32; xvi. 17; 
Lk. ix. 26; Mt. vii. 23; Lk. xii. 8, 9; xiii. 27; Mk. xiii. 26-27; 
Mt. xxiv. 30-31; Lk. xxi. 27; Mt. xxv. 34, 41; Mk. xiv. 62; 
Mt. xxvi. 64; Lk. xxii. 69. 

2Lk. i. 35; Mt. i. 20; Mt. i. 10; Mt. iii. 16; Lk. iii. 22; Ac. 
x. 38; Mk. i. 2; Mt. iv. i; Lk iv. i, 18; x 21; Mt. xii. 28; 
Lk. xi. 20. 



312 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



of my Father upon you: but stay you in the city, till 
you be endued with power from on high ". So that, 
on the day of Pentecost, S. Peter could rightly tell 
the Jews : " This Jesus hath God raised again, whereof 
we are all witnesses. Being exalted, therefore, by 
the right hand of God, and having received of the 
Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath poured 
forth this which you see and hear "/ 

a. The Eminence of the Sacred Humanity. 

Such are the extraordinary privileges, the incom- 
parable powers, the extensive rights ascribed to Jesus. 
But, we may ask, in what sense do they belong to him ? 
They are His directly in His character of Messiah 
and in His divinely privileged humanity. It is be- 
cause He was sent by His Father that He preaches 
and teaches ; it is in virtue of the divine power im- 
parted to Him that He heals the sick and dispels 
demons ; it is by divine delegation that He remits sins 
on earth. His action being ratified, so to say, by God in 
heaven, and that He sends the Holy Spirit, although 
after having beforehand asked and obtained His 
Father's authorization. And it is directly owing to 
His Messianic dignity that Jesus, after His Father 
had endowed Him with power to exercise His earthly 
ministry, is to receive also a share in His supreme 
authority and in the splendor of His glory, for the 
work of judging all men and inaugurating the reign 
of God in triumph. 

How far, indeed, do these claims which Jesus 
made surpass the notion which ordinary Jews had of 
their terrestrial Messiah ! In the Christ-Man, as we 
behold Him, the Sacred Humanity stands upon a 
plane unusually lofty, nay inaccessible, and fairly 
surpassing all other men in an infinite degree, as also 
the angelic world itself, and even reaching unto the 
divinity, 

^ Lk. xxiv. 49 ; Ac. ii. ^2>^ 



b 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 313 

We may note what Bovon has to say with regard 
to the text of S. Mark xiii., 32, where mention is 
made of the fact, that neither the angels, nor the 
Son of Man are aware of the time of the final judg- 
ment. " This enumeration, then, places Jesus apart 
from other men, as it also does the angels ; but, on 
the other hand, it argues a very close relationship 
between the Father and the Son. How can we explain 
such an unusual situation? It is not enough to say 
that Christ claims it because He believes Himself to 
be the object of God's good pleasure; for, in that 
case. He would not be warranted in ranking Himself 
above the angels. So that, we are compelled to exceed 
the limits of the theory of Christ considered as 
Prophet, in order to vindicate, in behalf of Him who 
claims such a glorious privilege, a divine origin of a 
special kind. In other words, this text rightly leads 
us to the idea of the Only-Begotten Son mentioned in 
the Fourth Gospel ".^ 

This very text is, in fact, so suggestive that Schmidt 
has observed : " We cannot attribute the position held 
by the Son between the Angels and the Father merely 
to an exaltation of Christian thought concerning 
Jesus ".2 

In any case, we must admit that, between Christ 
and God, there was an incomparable union, a union 
of a surpassing and absolutely special kind. Besides, 
so strict is Jesus' association in the powers and rights 
of God, so extraordinary is the kind of identification 
with God which results therefrom, that the very nature 
of His union is apparently far beyond strictly human 
conditions and surpasses the common order of God's 
dealings with His creatures. 

^ Bovon, op. cit., vol. i, p. 425. 

? Schmidt, art; Son of God, E. B., par, 14, col. 4698L 



314 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

b. The Consubstantial Union, 
To be more explicit: Is the Savior's signal pre- 
eminence explained solely by His character as Christ, 
that is, by supposing Him to be, in His very nature, 
a man among men? Are the incomparable privileges 
that He enjoys only based upon a casual quahty, a 
merely accidental dignity, divinely super-added to Him 
as man, as a partaker in human nature, but in nowise 
affecting the inner nature of His being, and, sub- 
stantially considered, leaving Him in the possession 
of mere humanity? 

To suppose that a mere man had been chosen by 
God for elevation to so eminent a dignity and for a 
share in privileges so divine, seems rather a hard 
claim. If He were a mere man, even though extra- 
ordinary privileged by His very dignity, could the 
Messiah have thus claimed what seems, in truth, to 
pertain only to God ? And, in that case, would He 
have been authorized in directly remitting sins, nay, 
in delegating this power to others, as God Himself 
would do, and yet without at all sharing God's nature ? 
Would He have been allowed to command, by His 
own power, the winds and the waves; to heal the 
sick, to expel demons, and to confer upon His dis- 
ciples the power to perform the same miracles, not in- 
deed in His Father's name, but in His own name? 
Would He have received such authority and pre- 
eminence over the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God 
Himself, the Spirit who abides in God and proceeds 
from God? Would He have, in fine, been thus asso- 
ciated in the majesty of His Father to the extent of 
sitting at His right hand, of sharing His throne, and, 
amid the splendor of His Glory, of passing final judg- 
ment upon the living and the dead, and of ruling His 
kingdom forever ? ^ 

In thus deifying Jesus as the Messiah, there is ap- 

1 Mt, xxviii. 19; I Cor, ii. 10-12. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



315 



parently only one reasonable explanation, namely, 
that, this Alan-Messiah is something more than man, 
that, in His most perfect humanity, He enjoyed, 
from the first and essentially, a mysterious although 
real share in the divine nature such as justified His 
very special privileges and powers and in a manner 
authorized such an elevation of His humanity to the 
plane of the divinity. In other words : Jesus' mes- 
sianic claims are such that they appear to really desig- 
nate Him, not simply as a Messiah who possessed a 
human nature, but rather as one who, in a way, was 
a divine Messiah in virtue of a higher part of His 
being, — a God-Ma.n Messiah. 

We see, therefore, that the idea of Christ's con- 
substantial union with the Father is not discordant 
with the Synoptic data which we are studying, but 
seems to harmonize exactly therewith, and that this 
idea should be taken as their most authentic ex- 
pression. To be sure, the idea is not expressed with 
the exactness of a definition, but it is implied in all 
the facts narrated and is a logical and necessary con- 
sequence of such facts. Christ, moreover, is repre- 
sented as enjoying with God a special union which 
implies a sharing in powers so unique that, appar- 
ently. He is no stranger to the divine nature but 
verily is united with the divinity. God abides within 
Him; not merely accidentally and in passing, as 
though by His power, by His grace, and by His 
influence ; but substantially, that is, by His nature and 
by His essence. So that we may rightly call Christ 
by the name of God. Not, indeed, that He is God in 
as far as He is man and as sharing the nature of 
man, but because in Him human nature is united sub- 
stantially to the divinity, and because, above and be- 
yond His assumed human nature He essentially shares 
the divine nature. Christ, who is verily man, must 
also be truly God. 



3i6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

c. The Saviour s Attitude In Receiving Homage. 

We are also led to the same conclusion after con- 
sidering the Saviour's significant manner of accepting 
the many acts of homage paid to Him. It fact, we 
see Him accepting honors which, although not in 
themselves religious and divine, nevertheless display 
such a character in various circumstances. Thus, He 
allows many whom He meets to prostrate themselves 
before Him and to adore Him. Such is the at- 
titude of the Leper who, at the foot of the Mount 
of Beatitudes humbly asks to be cured; and also 
of Jairus, the leader of the Synagogue, who prays 
that his daughter be restored to life ; of the demoniac 
of Gerasa, who hastened to salute Him as Son of the 
Most High ; of the boatmen who, seeing Him crossing 
the sea of Genesareth, cried out: "thou art truly the 
Son of God " ; and of the Holy Women and the Dis- 
ciples who thus also render their homage to the risen 
Christ.^ 

It should be noted that the terms '' adoration ", 
and " prostration " do not always imply homage in the 
sense usually given to them. They may serve to de- 
note the action of a servant when kneeling before his 
master, of a subject in presence of his king. Thus, 
in the parable found in Mk. xviii. 26, the servant is 
described as lying prostrate before his master whilst 
asking a favor. The Magi and Herod himself speak 
of going to adore the new king of the Jews, 
undoubtedly in his proper capacity as king of the 
Jews. So too, the soldiers of the Pretorium intend 
to mock Jesus by prostrating themselves before Him 
in derision as though they recognized his royal 
dignity.^ 

It may also be remarked that the Greek term 

1 Mt. viii. 2 ; ix. 18 ; Mk. v. 6. 

2 Mt. xiv. Z3', Mt. xxviii. 9, 17; Lk. xxiv. 52; cf. Jo. ix. 38; 
Mt. xviii. 26; Mt. ii. 2, 8, 11; Mk. xv. 19; cf. Apoc. iii. 9, 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



317 



" Trpof/cweiv " signifies literally "to give a kiss with the 
hand " in token of reverence. This also is the precise 
sense of the Latin term which is found in the Vulgate 
text, namely, '' ad-orare ". In reality, however, these 
two terms, the Greek and the Latin, as employed in 
the Old and the New Testaments, indicate the atti- 
tude of kneeling or of prostration. In Hebrew, the 
corresponding term is the verb hishtahavdh, which 
signifies : to fall prostrate at anyone's feet. Through- 
out the Orient, indeed, people perform the act of 
adoration by means of prostration: this act is called 
the " salam ", and consists in one's falling down on his 
knees and touching the ground with the forehead as a 
sign of profound reverence. Such is the meaning 
that we should give to the texts in question. It may 
be noted, too, that in the Vulgate the text of Mt. xviii. 
26, reads " orabat " instead of " adorabat ", or, 

**TrpoaeKvvei*' . 

Nevertheless, the expression does possess a religious 
meaning; and when such is the case it is always that 
of adoration, properly speaking, of the supreme hom- 
age due to God alone. It is thus used with reference 
to the services of the Temple at Jerusalem, to that 
religious duty which the Jews were to render to the 
Lord in the Holy City. The author of the Apocalypse 
also employs this term to represent the honor rendered 
to the eternal and living God by the four and twenty 
Ancients who surround the throne. It is also thus 
that Jesus replies to Satan who demands this homage 
from Him : " The Lord, Thy God, shalt thou adore, 
and Him only shalt thou serve." ^ 

When performed in a religious spirit, this homage 
so plainly bears the character of adoration, strictly 
speaking, such as is reserved to the true God alone, 
that it is in fact refused by those men and angels to 

1 Jo. iv. 20, 21, 22; xii. 20; Ac. viii. 27; xxiv. 11; Apoc. iv. 
10; V. 14; vii. 11; xi. 16; xix. 4; cf. xiv. 7; Mt. iv. 10; Lk. 
iv. 8; cf. Jo. iv. 23, 24. 



3i8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

whom it happens to be offered. CorneUus the cen- 
turion, when surprised by the appearance of S. Peter, 
falls down at the Apostle's feet, as though to adore 
him. S. Peter promptly bids him to rise up, saying: 
" Arise, I myself also am a man ". In Lycaonia, the 
same thing happens when the people of Lystra after 
witnessing a miracle take SS. Paul and Barnabas for 
gods descended upon earth and proceed to offer sacri- 
fice to them ; and the apostles exclaim : *' Ye men, why 
do ye do these things ? We also are mortals, men like 
unto you, preaching to you to be converted from these 
vain things, to the living God who made the heaven 
and the earth and the sea, and all things that are in 
them". And S. John recounts, in his Apocalypse, how 
he desired to fall prostrate at the feet of the Angel 
of the great revelations and to adore him ; but he was 
told : " See thou do it not : I am thy fellow servant, 
and of thy brethren. . . . Adore God ".^ 

With Jesus, however, it is otherwise : He never for a 
moment declined such homage, even in circumstances 
that marked it with a religious stamp: He accepts it, 
He approves of it. No doubt, it is not always that 
those who thus prostrate themselves at His feet intend 
to offer Him the adoration reserved to God alone. 
Often, however, such prostration bears the general 
character of religious homage. Was it not, for in- 
stance, to a great wonder-worker to a man of God, 
that the adoration rendered by the lepers and by the 
chief of the Synagogue was apparently directed ? But, 
above all, the demoniacs of Gerasa, and the boatmen 
of Genesareth plainly disclose the true meaning of 
their prostration when, in falling down at Jesus' feet, 
they proclaim Him to be the " Son of God ", the 
" Son of the Most High "., So too, the holy women 
and the apostles who fell prostrate before the Risen 
Lord undoubtedly thus meant to pay Him religious 

1 Ac. xiv. 14 ; Apoc. xix. 10. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 319 

homage. If then reHgious adoration could truly prove 
to be an honor exclusively divine, how was it that 
Jesus so readily favored it? 

That one so humble, so jealous of the rights of His 
heavenly Father, so attentive to discard the honors 
of men, should not oppose their attitude but rather 
willingly agree to it; that, instead of protesting like 
S. Peter. " I myself also am a man ", or like the angel 
in the Apocalypse : " I am thy fellow-servant. 
. . . Adore God," He rather accepts and approves 
such homages, — it must be that He really believed that 
He had the right to receive religious worship from 
men, that He believed that He could be adored equally 
with God. But, on the Saviour's part, such an ex- 
treme pretension is inexplicable if He were simply a 
man, whom God had indeed called to the highest voca- 
tion, yet a total stranger to the divine nature. 
That Jesus accepted these homages because of His 
messianic dignity, is admissible, but this Messiahship 
must have been intimately associated with the divinity. 
To have assumed honors which are apparently re- 
served to God, Christ must have been more than a 
mere Man-Christ : He must have been the Christ-God, 
and, in some manner, sharing the grandeur, the ma- 
jesty, and the very being of God. 

It has been observed by Loisy that '' in their daily 
intercourse with their Master, the disciples had no 
other worship for Him than a religious reverence. 
Even after the confession of Peter, there was no 
alteration of the simplicity that governed the relations 
between Christ and the apostles. The glory of the 
Messiah was still to come, and no homage would be 
rendered till the glory was made manifest. But the 
respective situations of the Saviour and His followers 
were entirely changed as a result of the Passion and 
the Resurrection." Loisy, imdoubtedly as a result 
of this general view, would willingly attribute to later 
Tradition, influenced by the Messianic belief, such 



320 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



adoration as that rendered by the lepers, the chief 
of the Synagogue, the demoniacs, or the boatmen. 
But, is it impossible that, although the Saviour's fol- 
lowers habitually showed for Him only the " religious 
reverence " mentioned, they should also, as in the in- 
stances related by the Evangelists, have felt a special 
and sudden impression which caused them to assume 
the attitude of " reUgious adoration " ? We need 
not suppose that the faith of those who fell down 
before Jesus was perfectly expUcit: it suffices if 
they had a certain persuasion of the divine nature 
within Him, and if, under this mysterious im- 
pression, their homage appeared, under the circum- 
stances, to have a religious stamp. The whole force 
of our reasoning is due precisely to the fact that the 
Saviour accepted such homage.^ 

The Titles " Messiah " and " Son of God ". 

To come now to those statements of Jesus that have 
a special bearing upon His position as Son of God. 
They surely afford an important confirmation of our 
previous conclusion. What, we may ask, does the 
title Son of God really mean ? What is its significance 
as assumed and employed by Christ the Saviour? 

And, first of all, to discuss Loisy's opinion on the 
matter. " More than one passage in the Gospels ", he 
writes, " can be found without difficulty from which 
the conclusion is clear that the title, Son of God, was 
for the Jews, the disciples, and for the Saviour Him- 
self the equivalent of the Messiah. It is enough to 
recall the different versions of the confession of Peter 
in the synoptic Gospels, and the questioning of Jesus 
by the High Priest. In Mark, Peter says to the 
Saviour, ' Thou art the Christ '. In Matthew, ' Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God '. In 
Luke, ' Thou art the Christ of God.' In the 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 251. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



321 



second Gospel Caiphas says to Jesus, art Thou the 
Christ, the Son of the Blessed?' In the first Gos- 
pel, ' I adjure Thee by the Hving God to tell us 
if Thou art the Christ, the Son of God '. In the 
third, the priests first ask Jesus if He is the Christ, 
and because He does not reply clearly, they re- 
peat the question in the form, ' Art Thou then the 
Son of God?' to which Jesus replies in the affirma- 
tive, as in the other two synoptic Gospels." And 
Loisy concludes : " In so far as the title of Son of 
God belongs in an exclusive sense to the Saviour, it is 
equivalent to that of Messiah, and takes its meaning 
from the rank of the Messiah. . . . Jesus named 
Himself the Son of God to the extent to which He 
avowed Himself the Messiah." He is the Son of 
God, par excellence, the only Son of the Father by 
reason of His incommunicable Messianic function, in- 
asmuch as He is " the sole maker of the kingdom of 
Heaven ", as also " the single organizer of the King- 
dom ", or again, the only vicar of God for the kingdom 
of Heaven ".^ 

Despite the boldness of these assertions, we may 
ask if, indeed, it is fully settled that the title, Son of 
God, which the Saviour applies to Himself, has not a 
deeper and higher meaning than the title, '' Messiah " ? 
It is really true that, in the texts mentioned, the titles 
" Christ " and " Son of God " are interchangeable and 
somewhat synonymous. It is true, furthermore, that 
a comparison of the Old Testament usage of these 
titles justifies us in supposing that the " Son of God " 
is first of all God's especially privileged Elect, His 
beloved Christus, or Anointed, in a word, the Messiah. 

We may remark, by the way, that in the fore-part 
of this work, wherein we viewed Jesus in His role 
of Messiah, we provisionally accepted this primary and 

1 Mk. viii. 29 ; Mt. xvi. 16 ; Lk. ix. 20 ; Mk. xiv. 61 ; Mt. 
xxvi. 63; Lk. xxii. 67-70; Loisy, op. cit., pp. 91, 105; Rev. 
d'Hist., 1903, p. 406. 
21 



322 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

fully warranted meaning of the title " Son of God ". 
We will now proceed to study it more closely, and 
first of all examine the two texts that serve as Loisy's 
principal basis, in order to ascertain what relation they 
bear to the two titles given to Jesus. 

S. Peter's profession of faith, so heartily approved 
and ratified by the Saviour is thus given in S. Mark: 
" Thou art the Christ " ; in S. Luke : " Thou art the 
Christ of God " ; in S. Matthew : '' Thou art the Christ, 
the Son of the Uving God ". A comparison of these 
three accounts would seem to prove that S. Peter 
wants to directly assign to Jesus the role of " Christ ", 
or God's " Anointed ". This inference is supported 
by the fact that, in the very account which S. Matthew 
presents, and just after the confession of S. Peter, 
Jesus warns His followers to tell nobody about what 
had happened, to tell no one that He was '* the Christ ". 
But, does it necessarily follow that, in this instance, 
S. Peter perceived His Master to be only and merely 
the human Messiah whom the Jews had awaited? 
When he declares Jesus to be " the Christ ", does he 
regard Him as a mere man whom God has chosen to 
establish His kingdom upon earth, and nothing more? 
It would seem not. ^ 

During the first two years of His public ministry, 
our Lord, alike by His words and deeds, seeks to 
reveal Himself discreetly to the people, but especially 
to His disciples. He had, in fact, impressed them 
with the idea that His personality was superhuman, 
intimately related to God, and enjoying a share in 
divine prerogatives and power. 

Thus, the disciples had witnessed the fact that He 
forgave the sins of the paralytic and of the sinful 
woman, and, like the Scribes, had undoubtedly won- 
dered : " None can forgive sins but God alone. . . . 
Who then is this man that He forgiveth sins ?" They 

* Mk. viii. 29; Lk. ix. 20; Mt. xvi. 16. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



323 



had seen Him suddenly calm the storm and had ex- 
claimed : " Who is this that He can command the 
wind and the sea ?" They had beheld Him walk upon 
the waters, and, falHng down at His feet, had said: 
" Thou art truly the Son of God ". They had heard 
also, no doubt, the unusual testimony of the demoniacs, 
although the Saviour had promptly checked them : " I 
know that Thou art the holy one of God ", " the Son 
of God", ''the Son of the Most High". Perhaps, 
too, they were aware of the solemn revelation at the 
Baptism and of the mysterious words pronounced by 
the heavenly Father : " This is my beloved Son in 
whom I am well pleased ". And, indeed, they were to 
hear soon afterwards this very same voice at the 
Transfiguration; nor did this latter manifestation ap- 
parently modify, in any important degree, their pre- 
viously formed notion of Jesus the Messiah and Son 
of God. 

So that, we are entirely led to believe, it would 
seem, that in declaring the Saviour to be " the Christ ", 
S. Peter did not behold in Him only the Man-Christ, 
existing in His mere humanity, but " the Christ, the 
Son of God ", who was closely related to God, even 
though he had undoubtedly been hitherto without a 
perfectly clear and definite idea of the true nature of 
such divine Sonship. 

Therefore S. Matthew's addition to the formula 
given in the other Synoptists, namely, " Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of the living God ", is not merely 
synonymous with the word " Christ " to which it is 
added as an apposition. We must not lower the 
term " Son of God " to the level of the term " Christ " 
as implying an entirely human Christ. Rather, the 
term " Christ " should be raised to the higher level of 
the term " Son of God " so expressive of a mys- 
terious and surpassing reality. Hence if S. Matthew's 
qualifying remark were not an authentic part of S. 
Peter's profession of faith, — and this is not proven, — 



324 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

it nevertheless explains and very exactly defines its 
meaning.^ 

The term '' Sort of God ", in Van Manen's opinion, 
does not in this particular passage designate the Mes- 
siah as theocratic king, but should be understood in a 
metaphysical sense. While H. J. Holtzmann thinks 
that the addition, *' Son of God ", was designed to 
bring out, by way of opposition, the transcendence of 
the '' Son of Man " mentioned in S. Matthew c. xvi., 
V. 1 6. And Dalman says that " it is evident that he 
who is called the Son of Man is in reaHty the Son of 
God. And this is why it is next stated in c. xvi., v. 17 
that Peter had acquired this conviction, not through 
men, but from God." ^ 

Thus, apparently the transcendent meaning of the 
title " Son of God " in this passage is well estabHshed. 
Moreover, it seems to be recognized that, in this in- 
stance, the expression accentuates the real meaning of 
the title of Messiah ". '' To the interpolator, says 
Schmidt, *' ' the Christ ' was no longer a mere equiva- 
lent of ' Messiah ' ; it had no doubt already assumed 
the same significance as the ' Son of God ' ".^ 

Such admissions are worth retaining. And, on the 
other hand, it remains true that the transcendent sense, 
which the two synonymous terms share in common, 
does not supply a reason for concluding, as do the 
critics, that we have here a later interpolation ; for, as 
we have just seen, its equivalent is met with again 
in the most authentic Christological texts. 

On the other hand, Jesus' reply to S. Peter plainly 
shows what meaning should be attributed to the 
apostle's declaration, and in what sense He should be 
considered the " Son of God ". S. Matthew, indeed, 
is the only evangelist to relate these words ; but this 

1 Ac. ix. 20, 22 ; I Jo. ii. 22 ; v. 15. 

2 Van Manen, art.: Theol. Tijdschrift, 1894, p. 184; Holtz- 
mann, H., op. cit., vol. i, p. 257; Dalman, op. cit., p. 254. 

3 Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 19, col. 4700. 



\ 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



325 



additional phrase is expressed in so manifestly primi- 
tive terms, it harmonizes so well with the context, 
such as it is given, whether in S. Matthew, or in the 
two other Synoptists, it corresponds so exactly with 
what the entire apostolic tradition teaches on the sub- 
ject of S. Peter's primacy, that we cannot reasonably 
doubt that these are authentic words of the Saviour, 
which, like many others, are omitted by two evan- 
gelists and preserved by a third. Now, Jesus' reply 
is of such a kind that it appears indeed to imply that, 
in S. Peter's confession which the Saviour approved, 
there is at least an allusion to the superhuman trans- 
cendence of His Messiahship, a sort of suspicion and, 
as it were, an insight into the superior character of 
His divine Sonship. 

Notice, in the passage, the appellation : Simon Bar- 
Jona, that is, Simon Son of Jona; again the play 
upon words in the use of Petrus and petram, thus 
implying the primitive Aramaic term " Kepha " or 
Rock ; and, finally, the quite Hebraic figures of speech : 
"Gates of Hell", and "Keys of the Kingdom of 
Heaven "/ 

As regards the text of Mt. xvi, 17-19, Schmidt 
claims that it has long since been recognized as " a 
later interpolation. It serves to show the pretensions 
of the Bishop of Rome, and has been more correctly 
interpreted by Catholic than by Protestant commen- 
tators ".^ 

But, how explain the fact that, for such supposed 
interpolation, choice was made of St. Matthew's Gos- 
pel and not that of S. Mark which the most ancient 
tradition connects precisely with the Church in Rome 
and with S. Peter? On the other hand, how explain 
the fact that persons who were so bold as to insert 

1 Jo. i. 42; xxi. 15, 16, 17; Mt. xvi. 19; xviii. 18; Jo. xx. 23; 
Mt. xvi 17 j xi. 27; Lk. x. 22. 

2 Schmidt, art.: Son of God, E. B., col. 4700, Mt. xvi. 17-19; 
Wernle, Die Synop. Frage, p. 192, 



326 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

in the traditional text the declaration that favors the 
chief of the apostles, in nowise modified nor lessened 
the blame which the Saviour so severely administered 
to him soon afterwards with the words : '* Get thee 
behind me, Satan " ? Are not rather the claims of the 
bishop of Rome and Simon Peter's very evident pre- 
eminence, from the first days of the Church, explained 
only by Jesus' authentic declarations, like those con- 
tained in this passage? 

" Even among the Twelve ", says Loisy, '* there is 
one who stands first, not only by priority of conver- 
sion or the ardor of his zeal, but by a kind of designa- 
tion by the Master, accepted by the apostolic com- 
munity with consequences still felt in its subsequent 
history." ^ 

Indeed, the apostle's profession of faith must have 
had something remarkable about it in order that the 
Saviour might thereby be justified in making so magni- 
ficent a promise as that of founding His church upon 
the apostle thus privileged : " And I say to thee : 
That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build 
my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind 
upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and 
whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be 
loosed also in heaven ". Above all, it must have had 
a very extraordinary import, a very deep meaning in 
order that Jesus might ascribe it to a particular revela- 
tion granted by His heavenly Father : " Blessed art 
thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath 
not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in 
heaven ". The fact of attributing to a revelation from 
the heavenly Father the faith of the apostle seems 
surely to indicate, in a suggestive manner, the super- 
natural grandeur and the superhuman character of the 

1 Loisy, op. cit., p. 147 ; Sanday, art. : Son of God, H, D., 
p. 572; Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 253. 



lESUS THE SON OF GOD 327 

title which Simon had just proclaimed: "Thou art 
the Christ, the Son of the living God ".^ 

Is it not in the same transcendent sense of Messiah- 
Son of God that Jesus replies to the question of the 
Sanhedrin? Caiphas asks Him if He is truly "the 
Christ, the Son of God ", or " the Son of the Blessed ". 
The Saviour answers affirmatively : " Thou hast said 
it ", and, in order to fully indicate the meaning of His 
response, He adds that people will one day see Him, 
" the Son of Man, sitting on the right hand of the 
Power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven ''. 
Thus did He place before the eyes of His judges the 
idea of His Messiahship in its most transcendent and 
most divine aspect. Not only is He the Messiah such 
as they had expected, — the mere son of David and 
temporal king of the Jews, but indeed the Messiah- 
Son of God, exalted in power and glory to the very 
plane of God. And so, indeed, do the Sanhedrists 
understand: they cry out that He blasphemeth, and 
at once declare Him worthy of death. ^ 

More explicit still is the account given in S. Luke's 
gospel. The High Priest begins by asking Jesus if He 
is really the Messiah. Jesus answers by affirming that 
He shall one day appear as " the Son of Man . . . 
sitting on the right hand of the Power of God ". His 
judges perceive that He identifies Himself with the 
Messiah whom the prophet Daniel described under the 
features of a Son of Man ; but they understand above 
all that He claims to stand upon a level with God and 
to be a Son of God equal in power to God. And so 
they then put that further question to Him : " Art 
thou then the Son of God?" ^ 

Why, we may ask, this change of expression? If 
we are to believe Loisy, it is but the same query stated 

1 Dalman, up. cit., p. 284. 

2 Mt. xxvi. 6z ; Mk. xiv. 61, 
?Lk. xxii. 66, 70. 



328 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

in another form owing to the fact that Jesus " does 
not reply clearly " to the first question. But how is 
it that, to secure a clearer reply, the members of the 
Sanhedrin actually employ an expression less simple 
and less usual than the one used in their former in- 
terrogation? If they do not ask simply "Art thou 
then the Christ f is it not because Jesus had just con- 
fessed more than His quality of Christ? It would 
seem then that the change of expression, '* thou art 
then the Son of God?" is fully intelligible only if 
Jesus' reply served to specify His quality of Christ 
as a close relationship with God, and if, while avow- 
ing Himself the Christ, he at the same time proclaimed 
Himself the Son of God and an equal to God in power. 
So that it was owing less to His avowal of Messiah- 
ship than to His claim to be the Son of God that 
Jesus was declared guilty of the most horrible blas- 
phemies and condemned to death.^ 

All this, indeed, corresponds exactly with the testi- 
mony of the Fourth Gospel which shows that its sacred 
author was very well informed about all that concerns 
the Passion of Jesus : " We have a law ", repHed the 
Jews of Pilate, *' and, according to the law. He ought 
to die, because He made Himself the Son of God ".^ 

In a word, we are not justified in discovering in 
the text mentioned by Loisy the proof that the title. 
Son of God, which was given to Jesus should be 
lowered to the human level of such a Messiah as the 
Jews were actually awaiting, but rather that the very 
title of Messiah should be elevated to the dignity of 
the title Son of God taken in a mysterious and super- 
natural sense. In reality, the Saviour's declarations, 
which we have interpreted, in the fore-part of this 
work, as simply a Messianic manifestation, appear to 
possess a more profound significance, and to lift Jesus 

1 Mk. xiv. 62, ; Mt. xxvi. 65, 66 ; Lk. xxii. 71. 
2jo. xix. 7; cf. V. 18; X. 3. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



329 



I 



the Messiah to a superhuman rank, in a way to the 
very plane of God, because He is, par excellence, the 
Son of God. 

Several critics, in fact, recognize the special signifi- 
cance of the Saviour's response as recorded in the 
third Gospel. Thus, Dalman, referring to the second 
question of the High-Priest, acknowrledges its trans- 
cendent meaning ; he says that " it must mean that 
Jesus is really, and according to His ov^n declaration, 
not the Son of Man, but the Son of God". It is 
also the opinion of J. Weiss and Bousset that, in pres- 
ence of the Sanhedrin, Jesus affirms not so much His 
character of Messiah as that of Son of God in a 
supernatural sense. Schmidt, however, thinks that the 
meaning implied by the text is so clear that it must 
be ascribed to a later tradition. "At the time when 
these accounts were elaborated, he says ' Son of Man ', 
' Christ ', and ' Son of God ' had become synonymous, 
and ' Son of God ' was understood as ' God ' ; so that 
the blasphemy of making Himself equal with God 
could be conceived of as a charge brought against 
Jesus ".^ 

Such conclusions certainly go against Loisy's inter- 
pretation of the text. Besides, we are not authorized 
in supposing that S. Luke's account is less authentic 
than those of the other two Synoptists. It specifies 
them, indeed, but without changing their meaning. 
The transcendent meaning of Christ's Messiahship 
underlies the triple account, and corresponds to all the 
other declarations of the Saviour : we cannot refuse to 
recognize its authenticity. 

It is suggested, indeed, by H. J. Holtzmann that 
Jesus was accused of blasphemy simply because of 
His claiming to be the Messiah. But, in reality, such 

1 Dalman, op. cit., p. 255 ; Weiss, J., Die Predigt Jesu, 2nd 
ed. ; Bousset, art.: In Theol. Rundschau, Aug., 1902, p. 311; 
Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 20, col. 4701. 



330 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



a claim could have been considered as " blasphemy " 
only inasmuch as the Messiahship which Jesus asserted 
impUed a close relationship with God similar to that 
which we have seen clearly implied in His own state- 
ments. Moreover, there remains the general impres- 
sion that what seemed to the High Priest to be the 
supreme blasphemy, and what caused him to rend his 
garments in indignation, was really Jesus' formally 
expressed claim to be the Son of God.^ 

Jesus the Only Son of God. 

It is particularly, however, in the texts which 
record Jesus' declarations about His relation of 
Sonship with His heavenly Father that His de- 
clarations, which we have mentioned above, are 
explained and determined. In the first place, an 
examination of these various texts proves peremptorily, 
as it were, that the title of Son of God, in the Saviour's 
opinion, did not imply that He was only, nor directly, 
the Messiah, the chosen representative of God, but 
rather the Son who enjoyed strictly filial relations and 
an incomparable intimacy with God. While, on the 
other hand, the very extraordinary and unique char- 
acter of these relations of Sonship serves to confirm 
the idea which we have thus far obtained of Christ's 
transcendent personality. 

In referring to this feature as found throughout the 
texts of the New Testament, Loisy remarks that '' The 
Spirit of God is the agent of the divine Sonship of 
Jesus; but the nature of His activity and that of the 
Sonship are not presented in the same light. If we 
take the view of the second Gospel, Jesus will be the 
Messiah, Son of God, because He received at His 
baptism the divine Spirit ; and it will be hardly possible 
to suspect the metaphysical character of His divine 
Sonship. If we take Matthew and Luke alone, Jesus 

1 Holtzmann, H., op. cit., vol. i, p. 266, 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 331 

will be the Son of God because He is man without 
being born of man, and the descent of the Holy Spirit 
will apear as a complement to the former grace "/ 

These assertions give only a part of the truth. It 
is true that, in the second Gospel, Jesus appears as 
the Messiah Son of God at His baptism and in the 
two other Synoptists at His conception. We may also 
admit that the manifestation of the Holy Spirit at the 
baptism, like the intervention of this divine Spirit in 
the virginal conception, justifies the Saviour's divine 
filiation in as far as His humanity alone is concerned. 
As man born of the Spirit of the Most High, as man 
invested by the Spirit of God for the inauguration of 
His Messianic career, Jesus is the Son of God. But 
above all, as Loisy recognized, the appearance of the 
Holy Spirit at the baptism, as narrated in S. Matthew 
and in S. Luke, does not indicate that Jesus then 
received the divine Spirit for the first time, or that 
only then did He become the Son of God : it serves 
merely to complete and confirm what occurred at the 
moment of His conception, to manifest and proclaim 
what was accomplished within the womb of the 
Blessed Virgin. 

Now, the episode recorded in S. Mark's gospel may 
have exactly the same meaning: the second evangelist 
does not indeed mention the Infancy of Jesus; but 
this affords no reason to suppose that he intended to 
assign to the baptism the beginning of His Messiah- 
ship and divine Sonship. On the other hand, this 
is not all the testimony that the Synoptists give to 
Christ's divine filiation. Independently of His virginal 
conception and endowment by the Holy Spirit at the 
baptism, Jesus appeared as Son of God by the very 
special filial relations which He enjoyed with God. 
And it is precisely these filial relations that we should 
study in order to ascertain whether Jesus' divine Son- 

1 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 231 ; Rev. d'Hisi., 1904, p. 93. 



^^2 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ship belonged to Him only as man and implied in 
Him naught more than His humanity. Loisy says that 
" if we take the view of the second Gospel it will 
be hardly possible to suspect the metaphysical char- 
acter of the divine Sonship ". Perhaps, then, it may 
be somewhat suspected; and perhaps more so than he 
would care to admit. 

As regards, then, Jesus' references to His relation- 
ship to His Father, we find that He constantly calls 
God " my Father ", " my heavenly Father ", " my 
Father who is in heaven", or simply, "the Father; 
and, in turn, He calls Himself " the Son ", " the Son 
of God ". It is because He is Son that He must be 
about His Father's business. He stands toward Him 
in loving dependence and rejoices in spirit when be- 
holding what had seemed good in His sight.^ 

So greatly, indeed, does He love to do His Father's 
will, and so ardently does He seek His Father's glory 
that, among the very first words of that great prayer 
which He taught his disciples, are the words : " Our 
Father . . . hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom 
come. Thy will be done ". All His affections, all His 
predilections are for those who do His Father's will 
and keep His commandments. If He is so anxious 
about the welfare of the souls of little children, it is 
because their guardian angels in heaven behold the 
face of His Father. Naught more touching, whilst 
He endured His agony in the Garden, than His gener- 
ous acquiescence and filial abandonment to the designs 
of His Father. In dying, His last word is to proclaim 

iLk. ii. 49; Mt. XX. 2S; Mt. xvi. 27; Mk. viii. 38; Lk. xxii. 
29; Mt. xxv. 34; xxvi. 29, 53; xxvi. 42; xi. 27; Mt. xv. 13; 
xviii. 35; Mt. vii. 21; x. 32, 33; xii. 50; xiv. 13; xviii. 10, 19; 
Lk. ix. 26; Mt. xxvi. 39; Mk. xiv. 36; Lk. xxii. 42; Lk. 
xxiii. 46; Mt. xi. 25, 26, 27; Lk. x. 21, 22; Mk. xiii. 32; Mt. 
xxiv. 36; xxviii. 19; Ac. i. 4, 7; Mt. xi. 25; Lk. x. 21; Mk. 
xiii. 32 ; Mt. xxiv. 36 ; xxviii. 19 ; Mk. xiv. 61 ; Mt. xxvi. 63 ; 
Lk. xxii. 70; Mt. xvi. 16; cf. Mk. xii. 6; Mt. xxi. 37; Lk. xx. 
13; Lk. ii. 49; Mt. xi. 25; Lk. x. 21. 



JESUS THE SOX OF GOD 333 

that He gently breathes forth His soul into His Fath- 
er's hands. Wherever we look, we feel that, in this 
word " Father ", which He addresses God, He con- 
centrates all the respect, fihal submission, confiding 
trust, and devotedly generous love that can be found 
within the heart of the best of sons/ 

And, on the other hand, as Son, He is the object of 
His Father's especial affection. He is His cherished 
and well-beloved Son in whom He finds the greatest 
delight. He has but to ask His Father for assistance, 
and His Father will send Him a dozen legions of 
angels. All things have been given Him by His 
Father. He s-hall grant the Kingdom to His disciples, 
but He has first received it from His Father directly, 
and with sovereign power to dispose of it. It is on 
the Resurrection day that He enters upon the com- 
plete and final possession of His powers. He can de- 
clare, on that day, that all power has been officially 
given to Him in heaven and earth ; so too, at the last 
day. He shall be seated, amid the splendor of the 
divine glory, at the right hand of His Father.^ 

Hence, the title Son of God, employed by the 
Saviour is warranted directly and independently, as 
it were, of His Messianic character, by the filial 
relations uniting Him to God. Not only does God act 
towards Him as a Father, bestowing upon Him the 
most striking marks of His love and predilection, but 
He Himself acts as though He were really His Fath- 
er's son, and showing for Him all the sentiments which 
a son should have for his Father. So that, the idea 
of those filial relations did not necessarily enter into 
the notion of the traditional Messiah : it surpassed the 

1 Mt. vi. 9-10; Lk. xi. 2; Mt. xii. 50; cf. vii. 21; Mt. xviii. 
10; Mk. xiv. 36; Mt. xxvi. 39, 42; Lk. xxii. 42; Lk. xxiii. 46. 

2 Mk. i. 16; Mt. iii. 17; Lk. iii. 22; Mk. ix. 6; Mt. xvii. 5; 
Lk. ix. 35; Mk. xii. 6; Lk. xx. 13; Mt. xxvi. 53; Mt. xi. 27; 
Lk. X. 21; Lk. xxii. 2g; Mt. xxviii. 18; Mk. viii. 38; Mt. xvi. 
27; Lk. ix. 26; Mk. xiv. 62; Mt. xxvi. 64; Lk. xxii. 69. 



334 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Messianic theme. Jesus' relations with His heavenly 
Father possess a separate and special meaning inde- 
pendently of that relationship existing between Jesus 
as Messiah and that God whose chosen one He is. 

Renan, B. Weiss, Wendt and Harnack. — The 
foregoing facts are fully appreciated by such critics 
as Renan, B. Weiss, Wendt, and Harnack. Thus 
Renan says : " The men who have best comprehended 
God . . felt the divine within themselves. We must 
place Jesus in the front rank of the great family of 
the true sons of God. Jesus has no visions ; God does 
not speak to him as to one outside himself: God is 
in him. He feels himself close to God, and draws 
from his own heart all that he says of his Father. He 
lives in the bosom of God by contact at every moment ; 
He sees him not, but hears him . . . He believes him- 
self to be in direct communication with God; He be- 
lieves himself to be a son of God. The highest con- 
sciousness of God that has existed in the bosom of hu- 
manity is that of Jesus." ^ 

B. Weiss goes so far as to derive Jesus' conscious- 
ness of being the Messiah from the fact that He was 
previously aware of being the Son of God. " He 
could place everything", he says, " in its proper rela- 
tion to His mission only if convinced of the Messianic 
character of His calling, but He could never infer the 
latter from the former. So there is nothing left but 
to assume that the popular expectation which He en- 
countered first gave Him a clear understandmg of His 
calling; and that it was only during the course of His 
ministry that He assumed the character of Messiah ".^ 

And Wendt observes : " We cannot claim that 
Jesus, in personally styling Himself the Son of God, 
desired to affirm merely His Messianic vocation. 

1 Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 131, 132, 

2 Weiss, B., Life of Jesus, vol. i, p. 280 ; cf. Bibl. Theol. 
N. T., vol. i, pp. 82, 400. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



335 



What He wished in the first place was to indicate His 
incomparably pure and strict union with God, and, in 
His estimation, the title would have had no reason to 
exist if it had not, first of all, signified the entire real- 
ity of that personal union ".^ 

Harnack in turn, writes that " Jesus Himself gave 
a meaning to this conception which almost takes it out 
of the class of Messianic ideas, or, at all events, does 
not make its inclusion in that class necessary to a 
proper understanding of it ".^ 

" Both the Synoptic and the Johannine reports of 
Jesus' teaching ", says Stevens, " require us to suppose 
that the sonship to God which He claimed was not so 
much an official as a personal relation. To the mind 
of Jews, His sonship designated, not primarily a his- 
toric function, but an intimate fellowship and union 
with God. This unique and reciprocal knowledge be- 
tween Himself and the Father, and the inscrutable 
union upon which it was founded, was for the con- 
sciousness of Jesus the basis and condition precedent 
of His historic mission. Jesus was the Messiah be- 
cause He was par eminence the Son of God ".^ 

Sanday, also, remarks with reference to the title 
Son of God that " its meaning was very far from 
being exhausted by the holding of a certain office or 
function such as that of Messiah. For Jesus, the 
phrase means the absolute fullness of all that it ought 
to mean, — the perception of Sonship in relation to 
God; in a word, just all that sum of relations and 
habitudes of feeling and thought and action that we 
have seen so amply set before us in the- Gospel of 
St. John".* 

We see clearly, then, what we should think of this 

1 Wendt, op. cit., p. 421, Ger. ed. 

2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 137. 

3 Stevens, The Teaching of Jesus, p. 10 1. 

* Sanday, art.: Son of- God, H. D., p. 576.- 



336 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

statement of Loisy : " In so far as the title of Son 
of God belongs in an exclusive sense to the Saviour, 
it is equivalent to that of Messiah, and takes its mean- 
ing from the quality of Messiah; it belongs to Jesus, 
not because of His inner disposition and His rehgious 
experiences, but because of His providential function 
as the sole maker of the kingdom of Heaven . . . He 
is the Son, par excellence . . , because He alone is 
the vicar of God for the kingdom of Heaven ".^ 

No! After consulting all the Gospel testimony, it 
does not seem that the divine filiation of Jesus pre- 
sents, first of all, the character of an excelling divine 
choice, of an extraordinary consecration, incom- 
municable, received from God, and in virtue of which 
He will be " the sole maker of the Kingdom." It 
more directly implies the idea of a veritable divine 
filiation, of a real relation with His Father. Jesus 
does not seem to be called the Son of God merely in 
a sense analogous to the ancient kings of Israel, as 
sovereign of the ideal theocratic kingdom, and 
Jehovah's lieutenant for the kingdom of Heaven; but 
also, and chiefly, as truly holding towards God the 
position of a son towards His Father, and maintaining 
with Him particularly intimate filial relations. This 
much cannot be doubted : in emphasizing so constantly 
and so expressly the idea of His divine Sonship, 
Jesus fully shows that He was the Messiah only be- 
cause being at the same time the Son of God. 

Son of God and Son of Man. 

It may be asked, in the next place, what is the 
precise nature of that divine Sonship? At first sight, 
it apparently belongs to Jesus in His sacred humanity. 
For, the dependence, the respect, and the love which 
we have seen Him manifest as Son towards His 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 105, 106. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



337 



I 



heavenly Father are such as may exist between every 
human creature and God. Indeed, His disciples are 
called " sons of God ", and God is also called " their 
Father ".^ 

True enough. And yet a study of the Gospel texts 
shows the remarkable fact that the Saviour constantly 
places Himself, in dealing with His Father, upon a 
plane apart from other men, and indicates that His 
divine Sonship is of a different and incomparably 
higher order. Not only, in fact, is He the only one 
who shares His Father's entire possessions, the only 
one who receives universal power directly from Him, 
as also the kingdom and the glory, whilst others are 
admitted thereto only by His mediation ; but more- 
over, as enjoying filial relation with God, He is always 
careful not to rank Himself iipon the same plane as 
His disciples. Thus, Dalman, referring to the divine 
sonship enjoyed by other men, says that " their dignity 
stands in dependence upon His own. It is by com- 
munication that they possess what properly belongs to 
Him alone. He receives the sovereignty because He 
is the Son ; while they receive it because they are the 
followers of the Son ".^ 

Jesus constantly speaks of '' My Father ", of " Your 
Father " but never of " Our Father " in speaking of 
Himself and of His disciples. Nor is the prayer 
known as the " Our Father " an exception, since it 
is solely in the mouth of His disciples that the Saviour 
places it : " Thus shall ye pray : Our Father who art 
in heaven ". In fact Jesus keeps to the same rule in 
circumstances where, placing His disciples side by side 
with Him before God, He must have felt called 
upon to speak of " their Father " rather than of " His 

1 Lk. vi. 35 ; xx. 36 ; Mt. v. 9, 45 ; Mt. v. 6, 45, 48 ; vi. i, 4, 
6, 8, 9, 14, 15, 18, 26, 32; vii. 11; X. 20, 29; xi. 25, 26; xviii. 
14; xxiii. 9; Lk. vi 36; xi. 2, 13; xii. 30, 32. 

2 Dalman, op. cit., p. 281. 

22 



338 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Father ". As we read : " I will not drink from hence- 
forth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when 
I shall drink it zvith you anew in the kingdom of 
my Father. ... I send the promise of my 
Father, upon you. . . . Come ye blessed of my 
Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you 
from the foundation of the world ". What does all 
this mean but that the relation of sonship uniting 
Jesus to God His Father is not of the same order as 
that which binds the rest of mankind to God.^ 

It may be noted, too, that S. Luke xi. 2, the parallel 
to S. Matthew's text, reads : " When you pray, say : 
Father, hallowed be thy name ". Perhaps Jesus had 
told His disciples to say simply : "Abba ", i. e. 
" Father " when praying to God. However, in either 
Gospel, the prayer is given simply as the utterance 
of the disciples. H. J. Holtzmann, indeed, supposes 
that, in the above instance, the Saviour had prayed in 
common with the disciples ; but there is nothing to au- 
thorize such a supposition; so that, as Dalman ex- 
pHcitly admits, S. Matthew's text conveys the true 
meaning of the invocation addressed to the Father.^ 

Schmidt thinks that Jesus never used any other ex- 
pression than the general one of "Abba ", or " Father, 
and that the variant terms " My Father " and " Your 
Father " were due to the Greek evangelists.^ 

Dalman, however, a critic so noted for his knowl- 
edge of the Aramaic language, holds that it is beyond 
doubt that Jesus actually ranked Himself apart from 
His disciples and close to His heavenly Father. 
" The unique position assumed by Jesus also follows 
in other passages from the invariable separation be- 
tween * my Father ' and ' your Father ' ".* 

1 Mt. vi. 9 ; xxvi. 29 ; Lk. xxiv. 49 ; Mt. xxv. 34. 

2 Holtzmann, H., op. cU., p. 268; Dalman, op. cit., p. 230. 

3 Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 12, col. 4696. 
* Dalman, op. cit., p. 193. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 339 

And Stevens says : " God is to Him the Father, and 
He is to God the Son in an absokite sense. . . . 
Jesus never puts Himself in the same category with 
others when speaking of God's Fatherhood, or men's 
Sonship to God ".^ 

God is truly " the Father " of His disciples, but 
rather as their creator and all-loving Providence. His 
disciples are also '' sons of God ", but only on certain 
conditions, and in a restricted and imperfect sense. 
After the Resurrection they shall be sons of God; 
for then they shall be " as the angels " in that celestial 
kingdom wherein God shall recognize them as His 
own and treat them as His children. On earth, they 
may in a manner merit this title. Jesus applies it 
to them only in a single circumstance, and then merely 
to advise them to show, by their good-will towards all 
men, that they are sons worthy of their heavenly 
Father who makes His sun shine upon the just and 
unjust alike. But He Himself is the *' Son of God " 
in an unconditional and unrestricted sense, that is, by 
His nature and essence.^ 

If, then, the Saviour was so careful, so anxious to 
distinguish between the relations which He held with 
His Father and those which His disciples enjoyed; 
if He who was so humble, so full of condescension, 
so tenderly affectionate for His own, whom He calls 
" His friends ", nay more '' His brethren ", acted in 
this manner, He must have used these terms because 
He was impelled to do so by the necessity of the case, 
that is, because of the actual transcendence of His 
divine Sonship.^ 

Schmidt, therefore, quite erroneously affirms that 

1 Stevens, Theol. N. T., p. 60; Weiss, B., Bihl. Theol. N. T„ 
vol. i, p. 78. 

2 Mk. xii. 25 ; Mt. xxi. 30 ; Lk. xx. z^ ; Mt. v. 9 ; Lk. vi. 35 ; 
Mt. V. 45. 

^ Mt. xii. 50 ; XXV. 34 ; xxviii. 10. 



340 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



"A careful examination of the Gospels tends to pro- 
duce the conviction that Jesus never assumed the title 
' Son of God ' either to designate Himself as the ex- 
pected King of Israel or to intimate that His nature 
was unlike that of other men, but that He spoke of 
men in general as ' the Sons of God ', and of God as 
their Father, and also used the expression as a mark 
of distinction for those whose character resembled 
God's ". The truth is that, even apart from the pas- 
sages, wherein we have seen the Saviour consider 
Himself expressly as the Son of the Father, and which 
Schmidt mercilessly eliminates by a process of entirely 
negative criticism, " Jesus although he never applied 
to Himself the title ' Son of God ', yet made it in- 
dubitably clear that He was not merely ' a ', but * the ' 
Son of God ''."■ 

This divine transcendent filiation belongs to Jesus 
even in His human nature. It is as man that He enjoys 
such incomparable filial relations with God His Father 
as unite Him to God in a manner absolutely different 
from that experienced by other men. His human 
faculties, in the first place, must be regarded as the 
organ of those relations which He declares that He 
has with His Father. Thus, it is His intellect, divinely 
formed, which conceives of the greatness and good- 
ness of His heavenly Father. It is His human will 
which humbly submits to His designs ; it is through 
His human heart that He testifies to His filial affec- 
tion. His complacent love in His perfections and de- 
votedness to His glory. 

Basis of the Divine Sonship. 

So intimately, however, is the Saviour's humanity 
united with His heavenly Father, so extraordinary are 
the privileges and powers which rightly impart to 
Him His character of Only Son of God, that we are 

1 Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 25, col. 4703 ; Dal- 
man, op. cit., p. 281. 



lESUS THE SON OF GOD 



341 



led to ask: Have such filial relations their founda- 
tion only in the created humanity assumed by Jesus? 
It is very unlikely that a mere man, even though 
privileged with the vocation of Messiah, could have 
thus set Himself apart from other men in the relation 
of divine Sonship and become exalted to so special a 
degree of union with God and of participation in His 
powers. To warrant in some way such relations of 
Sonship, must there not have been a real elevation of 
the Saviour's humanity to a plane above that of 
pure human nature by means of a substantial union 
which would unite Him with the divinity and thus 
make Him, the Christ, equal to His Father? 

The majority of Protestant critics are content to 
state this incomparable excellence and unique perfec- 
tion of Jesus' divine Sonship. They admit that the 
Saviour sets Himself apart from all men in claiming 
to be pre-eminently " the Son of God " ; they maintain, 
or even imply, that such transcendence merely means 
an unusual union between Christ's humanity and God/ 

But, as Dalman justly observes, there is nothing 
to show that we should restrict Christ's divine Son- 
ship to a simply moral union with His Father. 

" Nowhere," he says, '* do we find that Jesus called 
Himself the Son of God in such a sense as to suggest 
a merely religious and ethical relation to God, — a re- 
lation which others actually possessed or which they 
were capable of attaining or destined to acquire ".- 

On the contrary, everything would indicate that 
this incomparably transcendent divine Sonship has 
its primary foundation in an essential relation of the 
human nature of Christ with God. Jesus' attitude in 
assuming special divine privileges and powers is suffi- 
ciently explained only by supposing that there was a 
substantial permeation of His human nature by the 

1 Cf. Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 230. 

2 Dalman, op. cit:, p. 287. 



342 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



divinity; so that the exceptional character of Christ's 
intimate union with God is reahzed only if this Man- 
Christ is exalted above mere humanity even unto God 
Himself through a mysterious communication of the 
divinity. 

" We must also admit ", says Stevens, " that the 
exegetical result, in the case before us, raises a prob- 
lem respecting the person of Jesus Christ with which 
the mind cannot decline to deal. As Son of God, 
Jesus stands in a unique relation to the Father. The 
title involves his ethical perfection. Now we cannot 
simply stop short with these assertions : to do so is to 
decline the problem to which this uniqueness gives 
rise. Why was Jesus the only sinless man? Was his 
sinlessness an accident? Why has it never been re- 
peated? If, as is admitted, he possessed the clear 
consciousness of sinlessness, what is the explanation 
of so exceptional and marvelous a fact? We are told 
that His consciousness of perfect union with God and 
of sinless perfection was " purely human " ; if so, it 
still demands some explanation which the representa- 
tives of this view have not given and make no effort to 
furnish. It is open to the radical theologian to say 
that the positing of a metaphysical union with God 
as the basis of the unique consciousness and charac- 
ter of Jesus is a subsequent explanation which Paul 
and John have given. But it is an explanation, and the 
mere assertion that Jesus' consciousness was " purely 
human " is not. It is, moreover, an explanation which 
these Apostles base upon the teaching and life of 
Jesus as they knew Him ".^ 

Similarly, Reuss, in referring to this moral union 
of Jesus with God, says : " The ethical relationship, if 
really such as we have described it, is not self-ex- 
planatory, nor above all is it explained by the analogies 
that can be supplied by the historic experience of man- 

1 Stevens, Theol. N. T., p. 63 ; Schmidt; Hermann, art. : In 
Theol. Stud, and Krit., 1889, p. 423. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



343 



kind. We are necessarily led to understand it as the 
manifestation of a metaphysical relationship which is 
truly far above and absolutely beyond all that this 
world and its history can produce or explain for us "/ 

The Eternal Son of God. 

But in what does the substantial union of Christ's 
humanity with God exactly consist? How should we 
describe this mysterious share in the divinity which 
the Saviour must enjoy in the higher part of His be- 
ing? In many texts of the Synoptists, Jesus is rep- 
resented as pre-existing before His earthly birth, and 
coming here below as the Envoy of His Father. In 
many texts it is said that He is " come ", and " sent " 
to preach the Gospel to Israel, to fulfil the Law and 
the Prophets, to heal and save the souls of sinners, 
to give His life as a ransom for many.^ 

True, such texts may, in part, refer merely to Jesus' 
entrance upon His public career ; for. He had left 
Nazareth, and hence He comes to preach the Gospel ; 
and it is in this sense that He compares His coming 
to that of John His precursor. But it is none the less 
true that, at times. He seems to clearly indicate that 
His earthly advent is, as it were, from a higher region 
where He existed before His Incarnation.^ 

Thus, the demons exclaim : " What have we to do 
with thee, Jesus Son of God? Art thou come hither 
to torment us before the time?" Jesus also says:"/ 
am come to cast fire upon the earth, and what will I 
but that it be enkindled ? Again : " Believe not that 
/ am come to bring peace upon the earth ; / am come to 
bring, not peace, but the sword". So, too, in S. Mark, 

1 Reuss, Hist, of Christ. TheoL, 3rd ed., vol. i, p. 234. 

2 Mk. i. 38; ii. 17; ix. 7,6', x. 45; Mt. v. 17; ix. 13; x. 34, 40; 
XV. 24; XX. 28; Lk. iv. 43; V. 32; ix. 48, 56; x. 16; xix. 10; 
cf. Mk. i. 24; Mt. viii. 29; Lk. iv. 34. 

3 Mt. xi. 18, 19 ; Lk. vii, 33-34- 



344 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



there is the same expression, " I am come ", a favorite 
term with S. John to designate Jesus' coming forth 
from the heavenly Father. All the foregoing texts, 
indeed, seem to exactly correspond v^ith the still more 
formal and expHcit passages of the Fourth Gospel 
wherein Jesus expressly states that He descended 
from heaven where He abided with His Father, and 
came down upon earth in order to teach and to save 
mankind.^ 

The entire Synoptic teaching, moreover, fully agrees 
with this idea. It portrays Jesus as essentially sharing 
the divinity because of a higher element of His being; 
it can be realized only above and beyond His human- 
ity ; it is independent of His human existence ; it may 
be indeed prior thereto; or, rather, its origin cannot 
arise in the course of time. Christ, who is substan- 
tially united with God, must necessarily, from all 
eternity, have subsisted in God. 

Previous to His earthly advent, He subsists eter- 
nally in God and, as S. John describes the Word, He 
is at once God and proceeds from God, and, in the 
course of time, assumes human nature. This view of 
Christ exactly accounts for all that is transcendent and 
divine in the Saviour's historic personality; nor can 
the Gospel realities be accounted for by any other ex- 
planation. 

But, on the other hand, do we not find a basis for 
attributing the formal quality of Son of God to 
Christ as a divine person in the transcendent and su- 
pernatural perfection of His divine Sonship even as 
man, as also in His mode of appearing in all re- 
spects as rather proceeding from God and subsisting 
in God than purely and simply identical with the 
Father? 

We may say that the unique character of Jesus' 
divine filiation, such as we have endeavored to prove 

1 Mt. viii. 29 ; Lk. xii. 49 ; Mk. i. 38. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 345 

it, affords the best confirmation of the primitive ac- 
counts which describe Him as begotten of God in His 
human nature. But do we not also find therein mo- 
tives for supposing a still more excellent begetting 
whereby He really becomes a participant in the divine 
nature? In other words, is not Jesus who, even as 
man, is the Son of God, also such, independently of 
His human nature, because, prior to His Incarnation, 
and as regards the higher part of His being. He is be- 
gotten of God's very substance? Moreover, the real- 
ity of this higher divine fihation appears to be in- 
sinuated and suggested in some way as a necessary con- 
clusion by the incomparable, transcendent and unique 
character which Jesus claims for His relationship 
with His Father. The most perfect relationship 
uniting Christ's humanity with God is rightly per- 
ceived as the human phase and created expression of 
that superior Sonship which Jesus enjoys in virtue 
of His divine nature.^ 

In referring to this matter, Sanday says : " It is 
equally little open to question that, in the Fourth Gos- 
pel, Christ is conceived as pre-existent. Is He pre- 
existent as Son ? In the case of S. John, there is a clear 
presumption that it is so suggested. It seems just to 
imply what the other Gospels lead us to the verge of, 
without directly supplying ".^ 

" The Son of David ". 

The foregoing conclusions are confirmed by an at- 
tentive study of several texts wherein the Saviour dis- 
creetly lifts the veil that hides His divine origin and 
His superior nature as Son of God. Does not Jesus, 
it may be asked, insinuate the essential transcendence 
of His divine filiation in asking the Scribes : " What 
think ye of Christ? Whose son is He? They say to 

1 Lepin, op. cit., pp. 72, 211. 

2 Sanday, art. : Son of God^ H. D., p. 576. 



346 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Him: David's. He saith to them: How then doth 
David in spirit call Him Lord, saying: The Lord said 
to my Lord: Sit on my right hand, until I make thy 
enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, 
how is he his Son?" ^ 

The Saviour does not deny that He is the Son of 
David. He had said so equivalently on several occa- 
sions. Thus, He healed the sick who had invoked 
Him by this name; He approved the multitude who 
had acclaimed Him under this title. And, now, by 
an irrefutable '' argumentum ad hominem ", that is, by 
accepting the authority of David whom His ques- 
tioners regarded as the inspired author of Psalm 109, 
which was deemed Messianic, He compels them to 
realize that He is more than a mere son of David; 
nay, that He is even the " Lord " of David, and is to 
sit at the right hand of the Eternal as a partaker of 
His power and glory. 

It may be noted that the Hebrew text reads : *' Word 
of Jehovah (laveh) to my Lord (Adon)"; and that 
in the Greek text of the Septuagint version which 
was used in Palestine during the time of Jesus, the 
word " Lord ", or nmoc is the equivalent both of laveh 
and Adon, namely, the Eternal and His Messiah; and 
it was to this Messiah, according to the traditional in- 
terpretation of the Scribes, that the word referred.^ 

Jesus, moreover, not only declares that the Messiah 
shares the divine attributes, but He also implies that if 
He is so especially associated with God, it is precisely 
as Son of God. Wendt remarks that the Psalmist's 
language affords the Saviour " the proof that what 
forms the essential basis of Christ's Messiahship is not 
Davidic filiation, but something far higher. And to 
Jesus, this can be solely the Messiah's relation to God, 
or the divine Sonship ".^ 

^ Mk. xii. 35 ; Mt. xxii. 42 ; Lk. xx. 41. 

2C/. Ps. ex. I. 

* Wendtj op. cit., p. 424, Ger. ed. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



347 



"An unbiased reader of the statement of Jesus 
cannot avoid the conclusion that the Messiah is in 
reahty the son of one more exalted than David, that is, 
the Son of God ".^ 

And Loisy, in referring to the text of S. John x. 31, 
admits that " all this discussion is a counterpart of the 
Synoptic discussion about the Messiah the Son of 
David who, indeed, is rather the Son of God ".^ 

Does Loisy mean that he would not hesitate to as- 
sign the synoptic text also to later tradition? Surely 
this could be only owing to a theological motive on 
his part. The text, in fact, is admitted without ques- 
tion by Wendt, Dalman, B. Weiss, Stapfer, Wernle, 
and O. Holtzmann. However, the last three writers 
interpret it as though Jesus wished to deny His Davidic 
descent. 

This text is recognized also by H. J. Holtzmann; 
but, wrongly enough, he apparently wants to attribute 
to the account in the First Gospel a metaphysical sense 
not encountered in the other two Synoptists and which 
he would attribute to the influence of tradition. " This 
passage ", he claims, " is dependent upon the confes- 
sion of S. Peter. ... In two instances does the first 
Evangelist appear as the theologian who beholds, in 
the Son of Man, the counter-part of the Son of God, 
and thus prepares the way for the doctrine on the two 
natures ".^ 

" The Synoptic accounts, Dalman observes, are here 
in virtual agreement. For it is of no real consequence 
that, according to Mark and Luke, Jesus should Him- 
self propound the question ; how the Messiah should 

1 Dalman, op. cit., p. 285. 

2 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 628; Wendt, op. cit., p. z^4, 
Ger. ed. ; Weiss, Life of Jesus, vol. ii, p. 384, Ger. ed. ; Stapfer, 
The Death and Res. of Jesus Christ, p. 29, Fr. ed. ; Wernle, 
op. cit., p. 47; Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 353, Ger. ed. 

2 Holtzmann, H., op. cit., vol. i, p. 258. 



348 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

be called a son of David, whereas in Matthew Jesus 
first causes the Pharisees to say that, from their point 
of view, the Messiah is a son of David. The aim in 
either case is the same, — to awaken reflection in regard 
to the origin of the Messiah rather than to His dignity 
or exalted rank "/ 

The evident comparison between the quality of Son 
of God and that of Son of Man apparently warrants 
the acceptance of both terms as analogous. What 
means the title, " Son of David " ? It is certainly 
equivalent to " Messiah " ; but to the Saviour, as to 
traditional opinion, it means a real descendent of the 
great king. Says Wendt : " Jesus would have hardly 
accepted this title as His own, if He had not found 
it verified in His real descent from David. Indeed, 
apart from other New Testament testimonies, the way 
that S. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, testifies 
that Jesus Christ is born of David according to the 
flesh, appears so decisive that we have not the least 
right to doubt the reality of that Davidic origin ".^ 

Ihe quality of Son of God, therefore, would seem 
to belong to the Saviour even in the proper and natural 
sense. In this title, and rightly so, Dalman perceives 
the proof that Jesus was aware of a divine supernat- 
ural intervention at His Incarnation, to which, pre- 
cisely, the accounts of His miraculous conception 
bear witness. Must we not see also in this title 
an indication of an even closer divine Sonship which 
constitutes Christ, even beyond His human nature, 
the true Son of God, sharing His Father's essence, and 
thus accounts for the unique privileges conferred upon 
His humanity? 

The Wicked Husbandmen. 
The exceptional character of the Saviour's divine 

1 Dalman, op. cit., p. 285 ; cf, Lepin, op. cit., p. 18 ; Wendt, 
op. cit., p. 425, Ger. ed. 

2 Op. cit, p. 425. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 349 

filiation is brought out even more explicitly in the 
Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen. God is therein 
represented as a rich father of family who sends forth 
into His vineyard, which typifies Israel, servants 
charged with the task of gathering the fruit and who 
represent the prophets of Israel, under the Old Law. 
One after another these servants are badly received, 
covered with stripes, and some of them killed by the 
faithless people. At length, the master decides to 
send into his vineyard " His own Son ", " His well- 
beloved Son ", " His heir ". But the stewards put 
Him to death just as they had killed the servants ; and 
in punishment for their crime their city shall be sacked 
and destroyed; the vineyard shall be given over to 
other laborers who shall gather therefrom fruits in 
due season.^ 

It is clear that, by this son who follows upon the 
servants, or the Prophets, and who, like them, is to be 
the victim of the hatred of the people, Jesus signifies 
Himself. He is, therefore the Son of God. And 
what a Son of God He was ! Between Him and the 
ancient Prophets there lies an essential divergence. 
He surpasses the most illustrious of them by all the 
distance lying between the son of a householder and 
the common servants: while they are simply God's 
servants, He is the Son of God, His only beloved Son.- 

Remarkable, indeed, are such expressions. Could 
we account for them in the hypothesis of Jesus' pure 
humanity? Undoubtedly, the character of Messiah 
itself is enough to place the Saviour above the great- 
est personages of the Old Law ; but would it warrant 
Him in proclaiming Himself the only Son of God to 
the exclusion of all the Prophets, looked upon as com- 
mon servants, if, like them, He were at most naught 

1 Mt. xxi. sy; Mk. xii. 6; Lk. xx. 13; Mk. xii. 7; Mt. xxi. 
38; Lk. XX. 14. 

2 Heb. i. I. 



350 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

more than man? If God had superadded the Mes- 
sianic dignity to His mere humanity, Christ would 
have thereby become the greatest of Prophets, the 
Prophet par excellence. Apparently, it would not 
have marked ,Him as essentially different from the 
other Prophets, or established a distinction of nature 
such as that existing between common servants and 
the son of the householder. The Saviour's language 
is intelligible only if we suppose that He was aware 
of being more than man, and more than a Prophet; 
that His actual union with God was not simply closer, 
in the same human and created order, but of a higher 
and transcendent character ; that He was by nature the 
true Son of God, while even the greatest Prophets 
were, as it were, only strangers and servants.^ 

This plainly confirms the reality of that physical 
sonship which unites Christ to God even in His hu- 
manity by reason of His miraculous birth. But, the 
manner in which Jesus presents Himself as being the 
Son of God from the time of His mission to Israel, 
and seemingly prior thereto, and on the other hand, 
the essential contrast established between His precise 
nature as Son of God and the mere position of ser- 
vants pertaining to the Prophets, seems also to be the 
confirmation of the reality of this higher and divine 
filiation which should belong to Christ as pre-existing 
in God. 

Some critics, indeed, have attacked the authenticity 
of this remarkable Parable. Loisy, for instance, who 
follows in the lead of Jiilicher, observes . " The story 
of the Wicked Plusbandmen is probably not to be 
classed among the Parables of Jesus ; it is rather a pro- 
duct of the influence exerted by the allegorizing tra- 
dition upon the parables ". The following summary 
of Loisy's views on this matter may prove interesting: 
Jesus spoke in parables, but never in allegories. It 

1 Cf. Mt. xxii. 2. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 351 

was only after the Saviour's death that the Christian 
Church witnessed the development of the allegory 
which, under the transparent veil of figurative lan- 
guage, directly describes the real fact which it is in- 
tended to illustrate. Primitive tradition, in its ef- 
fort to show that the Master's discourses contained 
predictions of the great events accomplished after His 
death, imparted to His authentic parables some one 
or other allegorical feature bearing upon a fact of 
Church history, or even made up from beginning to 
end, and placed upon the Saviour's lips complete alle- 
gories based upon accomplished facts. The allegori- 
cal features and allegories proper are, therefore, re- 
cognized as later additions to Jesus' own teaching as 
they are met with here and there in the Synoptics. 
Moreover the Fourth Gospel is so far the product of 
this allegorizing tradition and so little the authentic 
summary of the Saviour's discourses that " it contains 
no parable at all ", but only allegories. And with re- 
gard to the passage under discussion, it so minutely 
describes the destiny reserved to Jesus and the chas- 
tisement awaiting Jerusalem because of its crime, that 
it too is a product of such allegorizing tradition, — a 
kind of allegorical prophecy which was composed sub- 
sequently, although its figurative features were based 
upon the accomplished fact.^ 

To enter into a complete discussion of the above 
hypothesis of Loisy would require a special essay. It 
will suffice to present a few remarks. Without con- 
sidering whether or not Jesus could have foreseen and 
foretold His future destiny, and simply taking the 
view-point of exegetical criticism, we think that Loisy's 
theory about the parable and the allegory, as stated 
in his method of reasoning, is greatly open to suspicion. 
The fact is that there is no such distinction as he 

1 Loisy, Etudes Evang., pp. 34, 57 ; Jiilicher, Die Gleichnis- 
reden Jesu, Introd., 1886; Commentary, 1899, vol. ii, p. 385 
et seq. 



352 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

makes between the parable and the allegory: the two 
things, both of them derived from comparison or from 
simile, are parallel and connected, and often inti- 
mately blended. 

The Saviour, indeed, loves to present His lessons 
under a concrete and picturesque form that commands 
attention and appeals to one's emotions. Hence His 
constant use of comparison, of metaphor, of figures of 
speech that are drawn from daily experience and the 
passing observation of men and things. The parable, 
and the allegory are but a special form of comparison 
presented in a sHghtly developed and very vivid 
manner. 

What, indeed, is the parable but an imaginary re- 
cital, based upon the ordinary customs of Hfe, offering 
nothing unlikely, and written in view of teaching a 
moral lesson by way of comparison? As for the 
allegory, it is intended, also, to afford instruction. Its 
peculiar feature, however, is that it does not form, by 
itself, and in its material tenor, an account separate 
from the moral lesson and merely placed side by side 
with the explanation to be given. The very terms of 
the account represent directly and in figure the object 
intended ; they are used not in their material sense, 
but symbolically; the concrete expression given in the 
account is only a Hght covering, a transparent veil, 
through which the entire symbolized reality is imme- 
diately discovered and whence it follows directly. 

Whatever Loisy may say, the Fourth Gospel, as we 
shall see afterwards, includes both parabolic and al- 
legorical elements ; and even in what are usually called 
" Johanniiie allegories " these two strata are closely 
mingled. If, however, the parable is dominant in the 
first three Gospels, these writings are not entirely with- 
out allegorical elements, nor is it possible to ascribe 
them all to the work of later tradition. 

Thus, to note a few instances : " You are the light 
of the world. . . . You are the salt of the earth. . . . 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 353 

I shall make you fishers of men. . . . The harvest in- 
deed is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye 
therefore the Lord of the harvest that He send forth 
laborers into His harvest. . . . Thou art Peter, and 
upon this rock I will build my church. . . . Enter ye 
in at the narrow gate. ... If any man will follow me, 
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow 
me. . . . Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypo- 
crites, because you make clean the outside of the cup 
and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and 
uncleanness ". Are not all these figurative features 
simply so many allegories in brief outline?^ 

To discover this intimate union of parabolic and al- 
legoric elements, it is not even necessary to look out- 
side of the passage now under consideration and there 
is no reason either for attributing the former to the 
Saviour and the latter to tradition. In fact, the de- 
tails of the metaphor do not always correspond with 
parallel features in the thing imagined. Otherwise, 
unless this passage is really not wholly an allegory but 
essentially a parable, why do we find such reflexions 
as these? "A certain man planted a vineyard and 
made a hedge about it, and dug a place for the wine- 
fat, and built a tower, and let it to the husbandmen; 
and went into a far country. . . . This is the Heir; 
come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be 
ours ".^ 

Therefore the principle of exegesis emphasized by 
Loisy and Jiilicher has a very a priori character, and 
it leaves large room for arbitrary and imaginative 

1 Mt. V. 14; Mt. V. 13; cf. Mk. ix. 49; Mk. xvii. ; Mt. iv. 19; 
Lk. V. 10; Mt. ix. 37-38; Lk. x. 2; Mt. xvi. 18; Mt. vii. 13; 
Lk. xiii. 24; Mk. viii. 34; Mt. x. 38; Mt. xvi. 24; Lk. ix. 23; 
xiv. 27; Mt. xxiii. 25; cf. Mt. xxv. 32; Lk. xx. 17; xxiii. 31. 

2 Bugge, Die Haupt-Parabeln Jesu, 1903; Fiebig, Die Alt- 
jud. Gleich. und die Glelch. Jesu, 1904; cf. Wellhausen, Das 
Evang. Marci, 1903. 

23 



354 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

conclusions. It may be remarked, also, that Jiilicher's 
radical views on this point have been especially ques- 
tioned by Bugge and Fiebig. 

In addition to the foregoing very debatable prin- 
ciple, Loisy alleges a number of reasons that tend to 
weaken the authenticity of this text. He claims that 
" before the event, there was no reason to show that 
the death of Jesus was the last limit of divine pa- 
tience ". Was there, indeed, no reason ? And why 
not? But, he continues: "' It is very strange that this 
discourse incited the auditors soon afterwards to com- 
mit the crime whose consequences they had just been 
warned about ". As though the pharisees were habi- 
tually accustomed to regulate their conduct by the 
words and advice of Jesus ! ^ 

And finally, Loisy observes : " If Jesus proclaims 
Himself the Son of God in presence of so many wit- 
nesses who understood what He said, we do not at all 
see why His case should be difficult to present before 
the High-Priest ". Of course, the Saviour had not 
explicitly declared : " I am the Son of God ". He 
was content to insinuate as much by way of parable. 
The parabolic method admirably suited His plan of 
prudent and suggestive manifestation. Before the 
High-Priest, His accusers look for a formal avowal, 
and it is remarkable that the confession which the 
authorities want to draw from Him bears precisely 
upon His character of Christ and Son of God. 
Former discourses, significant enough, although not 
absolutely explicit* can alone explain His judges' in- 
sistence in interrogating Him on the matter.^ 

It will be admitted, then, that such reasons cannot 
suffice to cast suspicion upon the authenticity of a pas- 
sage which the three Synoptists agree in giving as the 
very utterance of the Saviour, and which, moreover, 

1 Loisy, Etudes Evang., pp. 52, 53. 

2 Lagrange, Rev. Bib., April, 1903, p. 304. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 355 

is admitted as authentic by critics in general. Schmidt, 
indeed, Hke Jiihcher, maintains that the parable is non- 
authentic; but B. Weiss, Wendt, Dalman, O. Holtz- 
mann, and H. J. Holtzmann admit its authenticity, 
although they do not all interpret the text exactly in 
the same sense. " The Son ", says H. J. Holtzmann, 
" means merely the ' Kronprinz ' who occupies a 
special place in the kingdom. Still, this special 
dignity as God's lieutenant leads to a specific- 
ally religious idea. It follows, from the outcome of 
the parable, that Jesus considered the Son of God as 
the object of God's loving design." Wendt thinks 
that " He was aware of standing towards God in the 
relation of only, and well-beloved Son ". While 
Dalman says that " There is no difference between ' the 
well-beloved Son ' and ' only Son ' of John iii. 16. 
The position of the only Son is, in these cases, as in 
Ps. 2, regarded as a lawful standing which confers a 
right to claim the entire household property. In the 
case of the Son of God, the reference can only be 
to the sovereignty of the world, and to such a sover- 
eignty as would be exercised, not by a Jewish king, 
but by God himself ".^ 

" No One Knoweth the Son hut the Father ". 

Among the most noteworthy testimonies which 
Jesus Himself has given of the transcendence of His 
divine filiation, we must also adduce the following 
utterances as found in the gospels of SS. Matthew and 
Luke: " I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven 
and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the 
wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little 
ones. Yea Father ; for so hath it seemed good in thy 
sight. All things are dehvered to me by my Father. 

1 Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 16, col. 4699 ; Weiss, 
B., op. cit., vol. ii, p. 423, Ger. ed. ; Holtzmann, H., op. cit., 
vol. i, p. 266 ; Wendt, op. cit., p. 419, Ger. ed. ; Dalman, op. 
cit., p. 281 ; Holtzmann, op. cit., p. ZZ2, Ger. ed. 



356 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

And no one knoweth the Son, but the Father : neither 
doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and He 
to whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him ".^ 
' While rejoicing in the Holy Ghost, Jesus first of all 
praises His Father for having revealed to the humble, 
that is to His disciples, what was hidden from the 
wise and the learned. Why so? Doubtless because 
of His marvelous Messianic work. His power of per- 
forming miracles. His influence over demons, all of 
which His chosen ones would be given a share ; doubt- 
less, too, because of the secrets of the Messianic king- 
dom, and the very mystery of the Messiah's person. 
Addressing His Father, He exclaims : " Yea, Father ; 
for so hath it seemed good in thy sight " ; and then, 
speaking for His disciples and apparently in answer to 
a question put by them. He continues : ''All things are 
delivered to me by my Father ". The Saviour also re- 
calls the powers which He has received from His 
heavenly Father and which He has communicated to 
His disciples, — powers over the elements and over 
evil spirits. H the demons obey His messengers, it is 
because they are also subject to Him; He goes forth 
to destroy them altogether. The universal kingdom 
of Satan is to be replaced by His own kingdom, the 
kingdom of God: all things have been delivered to 
Him by His Father with the view that all may be given 
to Him in a still more excellent manner and finally 
on the day of His resurrection, as He seems to fore- 
see it prophetically.^ 

What, moreover, is the source of that supereminent 
dignity conferred upon Jesus? Why that universal 
power given to Him by His Father? The Saviour 
seems to show the reason for this in the unique char- 

1 Mt. xi. 25-27 ; Lk. x. 21-22. 

2Lk. X. 21; Lk. X. 17, 19; cf. Lk. xxiii. 24; cf. Mk. iv. 11; 
Mt. xiii. 11; Lk. viii. 10; cf. Mt. xi. 28-30; cf. Lk. x. 21; Mt. 
xi. 25; xvi. 17; Lk. x. 19; cf. Mk. iii. 23-27; Mt. xii. 25-29; 
Lk. xi. 17-22; cf. Mt. iv. 8, 9; Lk. vi. 5-6; cf. Mt. xxviii. 18. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



357' 



acter of His relations with God ; for, His nature is so 
exalted and His rank as Son of God is, humanly 
speaking, so impenetrable that, because of this essen- 
tial relationship which He bears to His Father, it is 
clear that the Father alone " knoweth the Son ". It is 
only the Father who knows all " that the Son is ", as 
His Son. Of such divine Sonship, the human intelli- 
gence can have an insight only by revelation from the 
Father Himself. 

No less remarkable, by way of contrast, is the emi- 
nent Fatherhood which God possesses as regards His 
Son. For, the Son alone " knoweth the Father " ; He 
alone knoweth " who the Father is " as His Father. 
So humanly inconceivable is the Fatherhood of God 
the Father that it can be really perceived only by a 
direct revelation made by the Son. This also discloses 
what is unusual and supernatural in Jesus' divine Son- 
ship. Not only does He declare Himself the Son of 
God, infinitely distant from other men and inaccessibly 
beyond the inquiry of the human mind; but He is 
moreover so closely related to God as to establish be- 
tween Him, the Son of God, and His Father, a sort of 
mutual union of mind that appears to argue a likeness 
of nature and a true equality.^ 

Protestant Critics. 

That there is something extraordinary about Christ's 
intellectual relations with God and about the unique 
character which thereby results in His divine Sonship, 
is recognized by Protestant critics, who, nevertheless, 
maintain that these extraordinary relations and such 
transcendent filiation exist within the limits of the 
Saviour's humanity. 

" The apostoHc source ", writes B. Weiss, '' pre- 
serves a saying in which Jesus calls Himself simply 

1 Mt. xi. 27 ; Lk. x. 22 ; cf. Parallelism of Lk. x. 23 and Mt, 
xvi. 17; I Cor. ii. 10; Mt. xi. 2y, Lk. x. 22, 



358 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the Son of His Father, and undoubtedly with the view 
of expressing His unique personal relationship to 
God. Such relationship is not conceived as a relation 
of essence, but as being one of incomparably intimate 
familiarity between the one and the other "/ 

" Just as Father and Son know and trust each other, 
so do God and He. He takes the Messianic title as 
the expression of the closest intimacy with God, of 
the most absolute trust in Him ", remarks Wernle.^ 

" The concluding words suggest a lofty degree of 
self-confidence. Jesus realizes that he alone knows 
God ;" it is thus that O. Holtzmann views the matter.^ 

" He lives in a sphere of religion so pure and so 
exalted that no human breath was ever felt therein ", 
says H. J. Holtzmann.* 

The position that Christ holds towards God, both 
mentally and morally, is assuredly extraordinary. If 
not being content with stating it, one tries also to 
explain it, its basis must apparently be found 
solely in a substantial relationship which Christ, the 
Son of God, holds towards His Father. And, in the 
first place, such substantial relationship should af- 
fect Christ's humanity, which is certainly united to 
the divine nature by reason of His origin and the very 
constitution of His being. Such seems to be the neces- 
sary conclusion that results from the character of the 
Saviour's relationship with God, which critics recog- 
nize as both original and, in a manner, essential. 

" But in this case of mutual understanding, says 
Dalman, its thoroughness and absolute infallibility 
are assumed. He who stands in so uniquely close a 
relation to God is the only possible mediator for the 
knowledge of God, and also at the same time the ab- 

1 Weiss, B., Bihl Theol, vol. i, p. 78. 

2 Wernle, op. cit., p. 53. 

3 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 284. 

4 Holtzmann, H., op. cit., vol. i. p. 275. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



359 



solutely reliable revealer of the whole wealth of the 
divine mysteries. What a son is to his father, 
Jesus is directly with reference to God. So that 
the peculiar relation of Jesus to God is one that can- 
not be transmitted to others or be subject to change. 
His disciples, indeed, through His means can attain 
to the knowledge of God. But their knowledge is de- 
rived through a medium while His is acquired by di- 
rect intuition." ^ 

Wendt writes : " This mutual knowledge, perfect 
and unique in its way, is not something accidental to 
the Father and the Son ; but it is necessarily connected 
with their very being as Father and Son. The love 
uniting them as Father and Son imparts to each an 
understanding of the other such as cannot be found 
among those who have not the like relationship ".^ 

Bovon remarks : " Christ's person reveals such a 
vastness that God alone can sound its depths. The 
mutual activity of these two beings is understood only 
by means of a relation of life to which no one besides 
them has a right to pretend; even here the Redeemer 
holds dominion over our earth from on high; He is 
truly the only Son of God ".^ 

Now, it seems indeed that so direct and perfect in- 
tuition of God can be conceived as being fundamental 
and in a way, natural to the Saviour, only if we 
suppose that His humanity was essentially elevated 
above pure human nature by a substantial union with 
the divinity. 

On the other hand, such is the force of the terms 
used by Jesus, so profound is the meaning of His 
declaration, that we may therein perceive evidence of 
a knowledge of God which is directly intuitive and 
adequate, and which appears to pertain to Him above 

1 Dalman, op. cit., p. 283. 

2 Wendt, op. cit., p. 418, Ger. ed. 

3 Bovon, op. cit, vol. i, p. 426. 



360 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

and beyond His humanity. Has not Keim said: 
" Exclusively related to each other, each being to the 
other a holy unveiled secret, they mutually approach 
with love in order to enjoy each other in the enjoy- 
ment which is based upon the similarity of spiritual 
activity, upon the likeness of essence of nature ".^ 
Has not Wendt, also, affirmed : " The context clearly 
shows that Jesus is assuredly the Son who, in His very 
being, is fully known by the Father alone, just as He 
alone knows the essence of the Father ".^ And a 
propos of this passage, have we not been told by Stap- 
fer of Jesus' '' incomprehensibility ", in which this 
author discerns " one of the most certain signs of His 
divinity " ? ^ If this text has impelled these critics to 
thus express themselves, it must indeed insinuate 
something else than the knowledge of God which 
Jesus enjoyed even as man, and hint at a kind of intel- 
lectual compenetration with the divine essence, which 
... is realized only in the superior and divine part of 
His being. 

That the Saviour had here wished to give an insight 
into His metaphysical relationship with God is not, 
however, admitted by B. Weiss, who thinks that " this 
is not historically conceivable and not, in any manner, 
indicated in the text ". Still, he cannot help finding in 
Jesus' declarations a certain indication that He had, 
indeed, within the depths of His consciousness, the 
idea of His eternal relationship to His Father. 

''Precisely in this statement," he writes, ''the relation 
appears as a pecuHar love and confidence existing be- 
tween them according to which each knows the other 
as no one else does ; but it is certainly permitted, nay, 
even commanded to stop and ask whether the knowl- 

1 Keim, Jesus of Nasara, vol. iv, p. 60. 

2 Wendt, loc. cit. 

3 Stapf er, The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, p. 
275. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 361 

edge of this unique relation to God, on which the con- 
sciousness of His calhng was founded, may not have 
stretched beyond and over itself. He did not become 
possessed of His special knowledge through any divine 
revelation. He had met with it in Himself from the 
very beginning; He had not been chosen at some mo- 
ment in His human existence to reveal the same to His 
people ; it was the very purpose of His life upon earth 
in which was fulfilled the Eternal decree of the Father 
regarding His people's salvation. But His knowledge 
of God, which could not have originated upon earth, 
must have done so in heaven; His relation of Son- 
ship did not take its rise in time, but only in eternity. 
The duty of proclaiming the love of God as the ground 
of the eternal salvation promised to His people, could 
only have been imposed upon Him by that same eter- 
nal love. It is in this sense that it may be said that 
even such statements as these point to the profound 
secret of Jesus' self-consciousness ".^ 

The above avowal, despite its limitations, is a valu- 
able confirmation of our preceding inference, namely, 
that the Saviour's testimony to the intellectual union 
He enjoys with His Father must refer to something 
higher than His human soul. Therein we can per- 
ceive the discreet witness given by His human con- 
science to a direct intuition of the uncreated essence 
and to a divine, transcendent Sonship which belongs 
to Him, not only as Man substantially united to God, 
but even in His superior and pre-existent being, that 
is, as the Eternal Son of God. 

Harnack's interpretation of this text, however re- 
markable in certain respects, is different from the 
one we have offered. He believes that, in Jesus' 
words, he finds the proof that the entire reason for 
the title, Son of God, taken by the Saviour, lies in the 

1 Weiss, B., Life of Jesus, vol. ii, p. 342. 



362 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

special knowledge which He had of God as Father. 
At the beginning of His soul-evolution, then, Jesus 
would have first of all known God as Father. Next, 
after becoming convinced that He knew God more ex- 
cellently than anyone else, and in an incomparable and 
unique manner, He would come to the idea of God 
as His Father. Thence, as a very practical conse- 
quence, He would become aware of being Himself 
the Son of God, charged with the office of imparting 
to others a share in His divine Sonship by the com- 
munication of what formed the essential reason of His 
quality of Son of God, namely, the knowledge of God 
as Father. 

" Let us first of all consider the designation, ' Son 
of God V' observes Harnack. " Jesus in one of His 
discourses made it specially clear why and in what 
sense he gave himself this name. The saying is to 
be found in Matthew, and not, as might perhaps have 
been expected, in John : ' No man knoweth the Son 
but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, 
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son 
will reveal him '. The ' knowledge of God ' is the 
sphere of the Divine Sonship. While imparting 
this knowledge He came to know the sacred Being 
who rules heaven and earth as Father, as His Father. 
The consciousness which he possessed of being the 
Son of God is, therefore, nothing but the practical 
consequence of knowing God as the Father and 
as His Father. Rightly understood, the name of 
Son means nothing but the knowledge of God. Here, 
however, two observations are to be made : Jesus 
is convinced that he knows God in a way in which 
no one ever knew Him before, and he knows that 
it is His vocation to communicate this knowledge 
of God to others by word and by deed, — and with 
it the knowledge that men are God's children. In 
this consciousness He knows himself to be the Son 
called and instituted of God, to be the Son of God, and 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 363 

hence he can say: My God and my Father, and into 
this invocation he puts something which belongs to no 
one but Himself." ^ 

" From that additional proposition : ' No man know- 
eth the Son but the Father ' " says O. Holtzmann, 
" His disciples could infer that He names Himself 
the Son of God owing to the so manifestly extraordin- 
ary character of His knowledge of God ".^ 

As regards the above appreciation given by Harnack, 
it is certainly interesting to find him so firmly admit- 
ting, like most Protestant critics, the unique character 
of Jesus' divine Sonship as disclosed by this text. 
But his interpretation as to what constitutes the es- 
sence of this divine Sonship apparently results from 
an a priori philosophical method rather than from a 
purely critical examination of the text, and it is far 
from corresponding with the whole significance of the 
reality. 

Loisy himself has shown this very clearly : " This 
text," he says, "is not put forward as an explanation of 
the Divine Sonship, but as the expression of a per- 
manent relation between the Father and the Son." 
That is, it is not the knowledge of God the Father 
which forms the divine filiation of the Son, but it is 
this very divine filiation which explains the knowledge 
which the Son has of His Father. The Son of God is 
not the Son of God because He knows God as His 
Father, any more than the Father is Father be- 
cause He knows His Son, but the Son knows God as 
Father precisely because He is the Son of God.^ 

" Obviously the text indicates a transcendental rela- 
tionship ", Loisy continues, " whence springs the lofty 
dignity of Christ, and not a psychological reality, which 
in regard to God is clearly impossible. Father and 

^ Harnack, op. cit., p. 137. 

3 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 91. 

2 Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 221. 



364 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Son are not here simply religious terms, but have al- 
ready become metaphysical theological expressions, and 
dogmatic speculation has been able to take possession 
of them, without much modification of their sense ".^ 

Again : " The Gospel conception of the Son of God 
is more a psychological idea signifying a relation of 
the soul with God than is the Gospel conception of the 
Kingdom. There is absolutely nothing to prove — and 
even the text quoted does not say so — that Jesus be- 
came the Son because He was the first to know God 
as the Father. The compiler of the Gospel has not 
the least intention of indicating that God was not 
known as the Father, before the advent of Jesus : he 
wishes to say, and says very clearly, that Christ, (the 
Son) alone knows perfectly God (the Father), and 
that, because He is the Son; just as the Father, God, 
alone knows perfectly Christ His Son, and that be- 
cause He is the Father, because He is God. The 
thought is fundamentally the same that inspires the 
passage of John : ' No man hath seen God at any time ; 
the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the 
Father, He hath declared Him '. The special knowl- 
edge of the Son has for its subject God as He is, and 
is not merely concerned with the goodness of God, as 
though the hearers of Jesus needed to be taught that 
God was their Father. Such a thought is as foreign 
to the evangelists as it was to the Saviour Himself. 
It is an artificial and superficial explanation of the Di- 
vine Sonship of Jesus." ^ 

Strangely enough, however, Loisy thus defends the 
true sense of this text against Harnack simply in or- 
der to cast doubts upon its authenticity and to ad- 
vance the hypothesis that it was, not a saying of the 
Saviour, but, at least partly, a product of Christian 
tradition. " It is difficult to see in it ", he writes, " the 

1 Loisy, op. cit., p. 94. 

2 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 96-97. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 365 

literal and exact expression of a declaration made by 
Christ to His disciples. ... It is fairly probable that, 
notwithstanding its occurrence in the two Gospels, the 
portion including the text cited by Harnack is, at any 
rate in its actual form, a product of Christian tradi- 
tion of the earlier times. It is, however, a valuable 
testimony, as far as concerns the development of 
Christology in the early age of the Church; but a 
critic must use it with the greatest reserve, when it is a 
question of establishing the idea Christ in His teach- 
ing gave of Himself, His Divine Sonship and His 
mission." ^ 

We should, indeed, have very weighty reasons for 
thus suspecting the authenticity of a passage so promi- 
nently presented by two Synoptic Gospels, and which 
even the entire assemblage of critics does not think of 
questioning. Lagrange remarks that " this accord is 
very significant; for Luke and Matthew are not 
mutually dependent in their actual form. What Luke 
has not borrowed from Mark, he owes to tradition or 
to former written documents : As the passage is in 
Matthew, it was likely a part of a document underly- 
ing Matthew and known, rightly or wrongly, — and 
we think wrongly, — as the Logia. Naught is more 
venerable in Gospel tradition. And right here Luke 
and Matthew are very specially accordant as to the 
terms, as though they had perceived that so important 
a text should be reproduced as it stood ; in any case it 
is impossible to distinguish between a primary and a 
secondary form ".^ 

Its authenticity, as we have just seen above, is ad- 
mitted by B. Weiss, Keim, Wendt, Wernle, Dalman, 
O. Holtzmann, H. J. Holtzmann, Stapfer, Bovon, as 
also Sanday, Stevens, and even J. Weiss and Bruce. 

Stapfer, for instance says that " in one of the most 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 95, 96. 

2 Lagrange, art. : Rev. Bib., April, 1903, p. 304. 



366 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

authentic passages in the Gospel, a passage drawn 
from the primitive collections of the discourses of 
Jesus made by the Apostle Matthew, we find these 
words : 'All things are delivered to me by my Father ' 
. . . etc." ^ 

" In view of the statement in Luke's preface as to 
the method on which he compiled his Gospel, a sober 
criticism will not readily acquiesce in the theory that 
the passage in which this text is embodied is a free 
poetical composition by the evangelist in the spirit of 
Paulinism. ... It is much more probable that both 
evangelists found it in a common source containing a 
collection of the sayings of Jesus ".^ 

Loisy says that this Gospel saying " occurs in a 
kind of psalm, where the influence of the prayer that 
closes the Book of Ecclesiasticus is evident both in 
the general scope and in several details. Both pas- 
sages begin with the praise of God, and there is in 
both a marked preference for the name of Father: 
the declaration concerning the mutual knowledge of 
the Father and the Son corresponds to the praises of 
Wisdom : the appeal of Christ to the weary and heavy 
laden seems inspired by the invitation that Wisdom 
addresses to the ignorant in the last part of the Prayer 
of Ben-Sirach. These correspondences are not acci- 
dental; and seeing that it is difficult to imagine that 
Jesus should have wished to imitate a passage of 
Ecclesiasticus in an oration or discourse apparently 
quite unpremeditated; seeing that the entire passage 
possesses a rhythm distinctly analogous to that of 
the Canticles reproduced in the first chapters of Luke ; 
and seeing that another passage can be found in 
Matthew, where Christ appears to be identified with 
Divine Wisdom, it is fairly probable that, notwith- 

1 Stapfer, Jesus Christ During His Ministry, p. 234. 

2 Bruce, art.: Jesus, E. B., par. 13, col. 2441; Sanday, art: 
Son of God, H. D., p. 575; Stevens, Theol. N. T., p. 60; 
Weiss, J., Die Pred. Jesu, 2d ed., 1900. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 7,67 

standing its occurrence in the two Gospels, the portion 
including the text cited by Harnack is, at any rate in 
its actual form, a product of the Christian tradition 
of the earlier times "/ 

In all this, Loisy follows Pfleiderer and Brandt, who 
admit also that the text has some dependence upon 
I Ep. Cor. Schmidt thinks that, " Neither of these 
views is perhaps capable of strict demonstration. But 
the underlying conviction that this cannot be a genuine 
saying of Jesus is as irresistible as the evidences of the 
gradual growth of such formulas is conclusive.^ 

To examine first of all the question of literary form, 
we may ask if it is really true that we have here " a 
kind of psalm ", and that " the entire passage pos- 
sesses a rhythm distinctly analogous to that of the 
Canticles reproduced in the first chapters of Luke " ? 

We may easily admit that the Saviour's tone is here 
more lofty than usual; but this is not at all surprising; 
does not St. Luke take care to mention the inspired 
transport which Christ felt in the ecstatic contempla- 
tion of the designs of His Father's wisdom? " In that 
same hour, He rejoiced in the Holy Ghost, and said 
. . ." On the other hand, it requires a great deal of 
good-will to find in these verses a rhythm more accen- 
tuated than in many other most authentic discourses of 
the Saviour. It is easy enough to find instances where 
the parallelism of members is as clearly, not to say 
more plainly marked. Thus, we may quote a few 
texts from the Sermon on the Mount : 

" Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth : 
Where the rust and moth consume, 
And where thieves break through and steal; 
But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven : 
Where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, 
And where thieves do not break through, nor steal; 
For where thy treasure is, 
There is thy heart also. 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 95-96; Pfleiderer, Unchristen'thum, 1887, 
p. 513; Brandt, Evangelische Geschichte, 1893, pp. 561, 576. 

2 Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 13, col. 4697 ; Loisy, 
Rev. d'Hist., 1903, p. 303. 



368 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

The light of the body is thy eye: 

If thy eye be single, 

Thy whole body shall be lightsome; 

But if thy eye be evil, 

Thy whole body shall be darksome; 

If then the light that is in thee be darkness, 

The darkness itself, how great shall it be!" 



" Ask, and it shall be given you : 
Seek, and you shall find : 
Knock, and it shall be opened to you; 
For, every one that asketh, receiveth : 
And he that seeketh, findeth : 
And to him that knocketh it shall be opened." ^ 

With regard, then, to the matter of rhythm, it must 
be admitted that the text of S. Matthew xi. 27 is in 
no way in marked contrast with the most authen- 
tic discourses of Jesus. Naught warrants us in sup- 
posing that, on this point, it is a psalm composed by 
some Christian prophet. 

And as for the alleged resemblance of this text to 
the Canticle in Ecclesiasticus, we must say that it is 
hardly perceptible, and that we are not to suppose that 
this text was borrowed, still less to doubt that, as it 
stands, it was uttered by the Saviour. ^ 

Loisy tells us that " both passages begin with the 
praise of God, and there is in both a marked prefer- 
ence for the name of Father ". True enough. But 
it should be noted that the mutual resemblance bears 
only upon one or two essential terms: thus there is 
far from being a completely literal resemblance be- 
tween the saying of Jesus and the words in the 
Canticle:^ 

1 Mt. vi. 19-23 ; Mt. vii. 7-8 ; cf. Mt. viii. 20 ; x. 24-42 ; Mk. 
ix. 41-49; X. 39-40, 42-45; Lk. vi. 39-45; xii. 22-23; xvi. 9-13, 
15-18. 

2 Grandmaison, art. : Etudes, January, 1903, p. 165. 

3 Ecclesiasticus li. i, 10. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 369 

Jesus. 
" I confess to thee, O Father, 
Lord of heaven and earth." 

ECCLESIASTICUS. 

" I will give glory to thee, O Lord, O King : 
And I will praise thee, O God my Saviour. 

I called upon the Lord, 
The Father of my Lord." 

On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that 
the motive for praising God is totally different in the 
prayer of the Son of Sirach from what it is in that of 
the Saviour; the former thanks God for having 
deigned to withdraw him from a great peril; while 
Jesus glorifies His Father for having revealed to little 
ones what He has hidden from the wise ones of this 
world. It remains that, in either case, we find terms 
expressing the praise of God as Father, but such terms 
are found elsewhere in the Old Testament ; and, in the 
text at hand, they are used so naturally by the 
Saviour, so like those He employs in several occasions 
in invoking His heavenly Father, that it is quite use- 
less to suppose that he borrowed from the above 
text of Ecclesiasticus. 

It may be noted, by the way, that the phrase : " I 
will praise thee ", as an address to the Lord is fre- 
quently met with in the writings of the Prophets and 
in the Psalms ; on the other hand, the title of "Father" 
given to God is not at all special to this chapter in the 
Book of Ecclesiasticus; for it is found twice in the 
same Book, as also in the Book of Wisdom, and in 
the Prophecy of Isaiah. In the New Testament also, 
and especially at the resurrection of Lazarus, we find 
instances where Jesus often calls upon God as His 
Father.^ 

1 Is. xii. I ; Dan. ii. 23 ; Ps. ix. 2 ; xviii. 50 ; Ixxxvi. 12 ; 
cxi. i; Ecclus. xxiii. i, 4; Wisd. xiv. 3; Is. liii. 16; Jo. xi. 42; 
cf. Mk. xiv. 36; Mt. xxvi. 39; Lk. xxii. 42; Jo. xii. 27-28; 
Lk. xxiii. 46. 

24 



370 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Must it not be a real prejudice on Loisy's part, 
therefore, to claim that *' the declaration concerning 
the mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son cor- 
responds to the praises of Wisdom " ? Primitive tra- 
dition, indeed, in identifying Christ with the Word of 
God, at the same time identified Him with Wisdom: 
it refers to Him in the same terms as Proverbs, Eccles- 
iasticus, and the Wisdom of Solomon had applied to 
the divine Wisdom, that most perfect image of God, 
formed in Him from the beginning, and assisting in 
the work of the world's creation. Note that the mean- 
ing of the text of Mt. xxiii. 34-36 is very doubtful as 
compared with Lk. xi. 49-51, ** where ", says Loisy, 
^'Christ appears to be identified with divine Wisdom ".^ 

But, although the identification of Christ with Wis- 
dom was very exactly conformable to the thought of 
primitive tradition, nay more, we may say, to the 
Saviour's own conviction, it does not seem to be di- 
rectly intended and signified in this text, i. e. Mt. xi. 
2^. Jesus' words themselves do not suggest that He 
here places Himself in relationship with the Eternal 
Wisdom ; in fact, if we compare these words with the 
text of Ecclesiasticus cited above there is no indica- 
tion whatever. The praise of Wisdom, as found in 
the prayer of the Son of Sirach, confines itself to 
proclaiming the benefits which it procures for those 
who cultivate it, as also to extolling the zeal displayed 
by the Son of Sirach himself in his quest for wisdom. 
No allusion whatever is made to any mutual knowledge 
between Wisdom and God; nor is there question of 
Wisdom as viewed in God, or of its relation with 
God. Where is, therefore, the correspondence be- 
tween " the praises of Wisdom " as man's' intel- 
lectual gift, and the Gospel " declaration concerning 
the mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son " ? 

1 Col. i. 15-17; Heb. i. 2-3; Jo. i. 1-3; Prov. viii. ; Ecclus. 
xxiv. ; Wisd. vii; Mt. xxiii. 34-36; Lk. xi. 49-51. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 371 

Moreover, what ground has Loisy to claim that " the 
intention of the passage is not so much to explain how 
Jesus is the Son of God, as to give prominence to the 
Christ by identifying Him, as the Son, with eternal 
Wisdom that God alone knows in its entirety, although 
it reveals itself to mankind; while, on its side, Wis- 
dom alone possesses and represents the full knowledge 
of God, although it reveals God to His creatures " ? 
To speak thus, — is it not to lose sight of the term of 
comparison and to force the texts to square with a 
preconceived idea ? ^ 

*' The appeal of Christ to the weary and heavy 
laden ", we are told by Loisy, " seems inspired by the 
invitation that Wisdom addresses to the ignorant in 
the last part of the prayer of Ben-Sirach ". There 
is, indeed, a real resemblance between the words of 
Wisdom and those of Jesus. Thus we read : " Draw 
near to me, ye unlearned, and gather yourselves to- 
gether in the house of discipline. . . . And submit 
your neck to the yoke, and let your soul receive dis- 
cipline " ; and on the other hand : " Come to me all you 
that labour, and are burdened and I will refresh you. 
Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because 
I am meek and humble of heart; and you shall find 
rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my bur- 
den light ".2 

It is remarkable, too, that the above verses are not 
in S. Luke, but only in S. Matthew. Did the latter 
insert them in their proper place? As it happens in 
his Gospel so frequently, may he not have reunited 
fragments of discourses uttered in different circum- 
stances? We may ask at least this much. At all 
events, the terms employed are not special to the fore- 
going text in the Book of Ecclesiasticu.s. The divine 
Master's request to accept His doctrine and to submit 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 95-96. 
. 2 Ecclus. li. 23, 26 ; Mt. xi. 28-30. 



372 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

to His precepts are essentially similar to the many in- 
vitations that the sages of Israel addressed to their 
disciples.^ 

Moreover, in Hebrew literature, the terms *' yoke " 
and " burden " were in frequent use ; and even when 
employed as figures of speech to signify the respec- 
tive ideas of ** teaching " and '' discipHne ", we find 
that they served as equivalent terms. Thus we read: 
" Give ear, my son, and take wise counsel, and cast not 
away my advice. Put thy feet into her fetters, and 
thy neck into her chains. . . . For in the latter end 
thou shalt find rest in her, and she shall be turned 
to thy joy ".^ 

Such formulas were, in a manner, the traditional 
and usual ones employed to express solemnly the in- 
vitation extended by a teacher to his disciples. They 
sound, therefore, natural enough in the mouth of the 
Saviour. Did He not declare Himself the only Mas- 
ter? " Neither be ye called masters ", He said, " for 
one is your master, Christ ". And how different was 
His spirit from that of the Scribes and Pharisees, of 
whom He said : '' they bind heavy and insupportable 
burdens, and lay them on men's shoulders ". Nor 
would it be unlikely that the Master might have 
wished to apply to Himself even the language of Wis- 
dom, the tutor of men. He personified it excellently, 
and, in another circumstance, He appears to have 
borrowed the personification which is used to describe 
the invitation extended by Wisdom to men that they 
should attend the feast which it had prepared for 
them.^ 

" When he says, ' I am meek and lowly ', Bruce 

1 Prov. i. 8; ii. 1-2; iii. 1-2, 21; iv. 10, 13, 20; v. i, 7; vi. 
20-21; vii. I, 3, 24; xxii. 17; xxiii. 26; Wisd. vi. i, 12, 27', 
Ecclus. vi. 18, 24-34; xvi. 24. 

2 Ecclus. vi. 24-29. 

3 Mt. xxiii. 10; Lk. xi. 46; Mt. xxii. 1-4; Lk. xiv. 16-17; cf. 
Prov. ix. I. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



373 



I 



remarks, Jesus of Nazareth speaks in the name of 
Wisdom (one of His self -designations according to 
Resch, Agrapha, p. 273SS) as the earlier Jesus had 
spoken before him ".^ 

But it is quite remarkable that this invitation of 
Wisdom to its disciples is found here and there as an 
habitual and favorite theme in the Sapiential books; 
and that it is not found in the chapter of Ecclesiasticus 
alleged by Loisy, wherein the only person appearing 
on the scene is the author of the Book, namely, the 
Son or Sirach.^ 

In a word, the similarities between this Gospel text 
and the prayer of the Son of Sirach are limited to 
resemblances that lie upon the surface ; they are con- 
fined to expressions that are very common and hardly 
characteristic; they do not hold good for the principal 
and truly important point. Naught, therefore, war- 
rants the conclusion that we have here a real case of 
affinity and borrowing. At most, we may suppose that 
there is but a partial and somewhat unconscious rem- 
iniscence, so little is it characteristic, and in any case 
quite natural. 

..." It is perfectly conceivable " says Bruce again, 
" that Jesus was acquainted with Ecclesiasticus, and 
that his utterances borrowed its colouring from the 
closing sentences of that book.^ 

Under these conditions, there is nothing to prevent 
us from supposing that the Saviour may have pro- 
nounced the words even as they stand in the text. 
And, furthermore, they afford us a very authentic 
testimony of Jesus' own belief in the transcendence of 
His divine filiation. Need we, then, be reminded that 
the Saviour's declaration on this occasion, where He 
refers to the Divine Son's knowledge of the Father, as 

1 Bruce, loc, cit.; Resch, Agrapha, p. 273. 

2 Prov. i. 23; viii. 4-10, 32-36; Ecclus. xxiv. 26-27, 

3 Bruce, loc. cit. 



374 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

also His parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, is in 
harmony with all His most authentic discourses? It 
serves but to confirm what we have seen Jesus pro- 
claim, as it were, at each instant, namely, the incom- 
parable, extraordinary, and unique character of His 
position as Son of God. 

Jesus' and S. Peter's Confession. 

We come now to consider the Saviour's response 
to Simon Peter just after this apostle had made His 
profession of faith at Caesarea. Jesus declares that 
his apostle could not have humanly perceived His 
quality as Messiah Son of God, but that this knowledge 
was revealed to him by the heavenly Father. The 
fact that the Saviour attributes a supernatural origin 
to Simon's faith fully shows, as we have seen, the great 
importance of his declaration. On the other hand, it 
is quite natural to think that there is a veritable corre- 
lation between the " Son of God " who is revealed 
and the '' heavenly Father " the revealer ; inasmuch 
as the Apostle's confession such as the Saviour sets 
it off, must have formally referred to the quaUty of 
*' Son " which unites Christ to God.^ 

Now, if S. Peter directly attributes this divine Son- 
ship to the Christ-Man, a comparison of this text with 
that we have been just studying seems to show that, 
in this divine Sonship, the Apostle perceived a trans- 
cendent reality and a superhuman element which ex- 
pressly belongs to the Christ-God. 

When Jesus said : " Neither doth any one know the 
Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the 
Son to reveal Him " He meant that no one knows all 
that the Father is, and, in particular, all that He is, as 
Father, to the Son. Similarly, " no one knoweth the 
Son " means all that the Son is, and more especially 
what He is, as Son to His Father: no one knows, 
" except the Father alone ". 

1 Mt. xvi. 17. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



375 



The parallelism in this text would seem to de- 
mand : " and he to whom it shall please the Father 
to reveal Him ". Now, it is precisely this parallel 
development which the Saviour supposes in this pas- 
sage when He says to His apostle : " Flesh and blood 
hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is 
in heaven " ; that is, he knew it not as man, by vir- 
tue of his human nature, but from God. Why is 
this revelation solemnly ascribed to the heavenly 
Father unless it be that Christ reveals it as Son of 
God, and that His divine Sonship is so eminent, so 
divine, and so humanly impenetrable as to be know- 
able only by revelation of God the Father, who alone 
knows His Son, and who is fully known only by His 
Son? 

It is not necessary that, at that moment, Peter 
should have perceived, as plainly as did the Church 
afterwards, the intimate nature of the metaphysical 
filiation which united Christ to God. He probably 
felt in his soul a sort of indescribable impression, a 
suspicion, very mysterious indeed, of Christ's trans- 
cendent and substantial divinity. But it is enough 
that, in some way. His act of faith should have been 
referring to the consubstantial Son of God: this suf- 
fices to warrant Jesus in formally ascribing it to a 
supernatural revelation from the Father. 

The Formula of Baptism. —Is not, also, the same 
interpretation to be given of the formula of Baptism 
which S. Matthew puts in the mouth of the Saviour? 
He says: "Going, teach all nations; baptizing them 
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you " ? ^ 

Some critics have questioned the authenticity of 
this formula; but we must say that their objections 
are not very conclusive. Conybeare and Schmidt, for 

1 Mt. xxviii. 19. 



376 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

instance, claim that this formula is not mentioned by 
Eusebius of Caesarea in his gospel citations which 
were made before the Council of Nicea; and that 
prior thereto, he always cited the text thus : " Going, 
instruct all nations in my name, teaching them to ob- 
serve all things whatsoever I have commanded you ".^ 

This text, thinks Loisy, reads more smoothly in its 
Eusebian than in its usual form. Of the latter he 
says : " if the passage is a gloss, it was suggested by 
the liturgical formula. The formula of Eusebius is 
more in accord with the texts of Paul and of the Acts, 
which d^escribe baptism as being conferred in the name 
of Jesus Christ ".^ 

But despite Eusebius' quotations, the usual text is 
found in the oldest manuscripts and quoted by several 
writers of the early Church era. It is given by Origen, 
Tertullian, and S. Cyprian, who wrote between 200- 
250 A. D. ; by S. Irenaeus who flourished towards the 
end of the second century; and by the author of the 
Didache, dated by most critics at the end of the first 
century, and which gives the text in such a manner 
that there is good reason to believe that its author had 
in mind the text of the first gospel which is so often 
cited. 

Thus in Origen's Scholia on the Gospel according 
to S. Matthew, ch. xxviii, we read : " Baptize in the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost ". And S. Cyprian, in his Book of Testi- 
monies, says : " Likewise in the gospel, the Lord after 
His resurrection says to His disciples: 'All power is 
given to Me in heaven and in earth. Go, therefore, 
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have 

1 Conybeare, The Eusebian Form of the Text Mt. xxviii. 
19; art.: Zeitschrift fur die Neut. Wiss., 1901, pp. 275-288; 
Schmidt, art.: Son of God, E. B., par. 15, col. 4698. 

2 Loisy, Autour d'un petit livre, pp. 231-232, 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



377 



commanded you ' ". S. Cyprian, in his Book of Testi- 
monies, says : " Likewise in the Gospel, the Lord after 
His resurrection says to His disciples : 'All power is 
given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, 
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have 
commanded you ' ". And, in his Twenty-second 
Epistle, he writes : " For, while the Lord has said that 
the nations are to be baptized in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ". . . 
Tertullian writes : " The law of Baptism has been 
imposed, and the formula prescribed: ' Go', He saith, 
' teach the nations, baptizing them into the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit ' ". 
And S. Irenaeus : " Giving to the disciples the power 
of regeneration into God, He said to them, ' Go and 
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ' . . .". 
In the Didache it is stated : " Baptize into the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit ". 
In his First Epistle, Clement of Rome has the expres- 
sion : " For as God liveth, and the Lord Jesus Christ 
liveth, and the Holy Spirit, who are the faith and 
the hope of the elect, so surely shall he ... be en- 
rolled and have a name among the number of them 
that are saved through Jesus Christ, through whom is 
the glory unto Him forever and ever Amen ".^ 

S. Paul thus conveys the same teaching : " The 
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of 
God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with 
you all ".^ 

1 Origen, Schol. on the Gosp. ace. to S. Matthew, c. xxviii. 
19; S. Cyprian, Ad Quirinum, Testimonia, bk. ii, c. xxvi; 
Epistle, xxii., n. 3; Tertull,, Baptism, c. xiii ; S. Irenaeus, 
Against Heresies, bk. iii, c. xvii., n. i; Teaching of^ the Twelve 
Apostles, n. 7; S. Clement of Rome, I Epistle Iviii. 2; Funk, 
Patres Apostolici, 2d ed., 1901, vol. i, p. 172, 

.2 II Cor. xiii. 13. 



3/8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

" The single verse, II Cor. xiii. 13," remarks San- 
day, " seems to require something very Hke what we 
find in Matthew and John." ^ 

In any supposition, then, we may infer that a 
formula of Baptism so firmly established during the 
early Church epoch could not have been independent 
of the Saviour's personal teachings ; and had it been a 
mere liturgical formula, it could not have crept into 
this very verse of S. Matthew's Gospel as a later 
gloss. 

If it be true, indeed, that the Acts of the Apostles 
refer only to the baptism which was given " in the 
name of Jesus Christ ", and of " the Lord ", we must 
not therefore attribute the formula given in the Gos- 
pel to later tradition. In fact, it contains nothing 
that goes beyond or against the most authentic teach- 
ing of Jesus concerning His Father, and Himself, and 
the Holy Spirit. It may have been uttered by the 
Master without being utilized immediately in the 
Baptismal service, but moreover, is it not implicitly 
suggested in the very formula as found in the Acts 
of the Apostles ? ^ 

Robinson asks us to choose between two hypotheses : 
"Either Matthew does indeed report exactly the words 
uttered by Jesus, but those words were not regarded 
as prescribing an actual formula to be used on every 
occasion, and the spirit of them was fulfilled by bap- 
tism in the name of the Lord Jesus ; or Matthew does 
not here report the ipsissima verba of Jesus, but trans- 
fers to him the famihar language of the Church of 
the evangelist's own time and locality ". Robinson 
himself, prefers the latter supposition, while Swete, on 
the contrary, favors the former.^ 

1 Sanday, art.: Jesus Christ, H. D., p. 624; cf. I Pet. i. 2. 

2 Ac. ii. 28; viii. 12, 16, 31-38; x. 48; xvi. 31-33; xix. 5; 
Sanday, loc. cit., H. D. 

3 Robinson, art.: Baptism, E. B., col. 474; Swete, art.: Ex- 
positor, Oct., 1902, 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



379 



While Plummer thinks rather that " when S. Luke 
relates that the Gentiles were baptized in the name of 
the Lord Jesus, he does not indicate the formula em- 
ployed in these baptisms, but the profession of faith 
demanded of the new Christians. . . . There is noth- 
ing to hinder us from thinking that the formula em- 
ployed in this case was also that which Christ had pre- 
scribed. ... It is a radical hypothesis to suppose 
that words of such importance were never uttered by 
Christ, and nevertheless they have been attributed to 
Him on the authority of the first Gospel ".^ 

If, then, our text somehow corresponds to the 
Saviour's thought, we ought to deem it a confirmation 
of all that our Gospel study has thus far disclosed. 
Jesus, along with the Holy Ghost, nay even prior to 
Him, is associated with the Father in a mysterious 
Trinity, sharing the same power, exerting the same 
action, and in some way enjoying the same unity. 
Thus, we read : " In the name of the Father and of 
the Son and of the Holy Ghost ". Would such ele- 
vation of Christ to the plane of God's divinity be in- 
telligible, if Christ's nature were merely human, and 
ever infinitely distant from the divine nature? To be 
thus placed on an equal footing with the heavenly 
Father, Jesus must have shared with His Divine 
Father a real union of being and life. Shall we say, 
then, that He stands beside the Father in His quality 
of Christ ? This indeed would imply that Christ is not 
merely man, but is united substantially to the divinity. 
Christ cannot thus be put on an equality with God un- 
less He Himself is essentially God. 

On the other hand, the manner in which He is pre- 
sented between the Father and the Holy Spirit, as be- 
ing one of the terms of the subsistence of the divine 
essence, seems to indicate that He thus appears be- 
tween the Holy Spirit and the Father because He is 

1 Plummer, art. : Baptism, H. D., pp. 241-242. 



380 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the Son of God, not only as man united substantially 
to God, but even previously in His very divinity, and 
as one of the Eternal Trinity. 

Resume. — We may conclude, therefore, that in 
view of the extraordinary privileges and powers as- 
sumed by Jesus, or after interpreting His own declara- 
tions of His divine Sonship and relations with God, 
His Father, Jesus is not only the Son of God as man, 
but also apart from His humanity, in the higher and 
pre-existent part of His being. He is the Son of God 
not only as the Man-Messiah especially adopted by 
God, with whom He enjoys incomparable relations of 
Sonship, which exceed indeed the created order ; but 
He is also, as the God-Messiah, necessarily and really 
begotten by God, eternally and substantially sharing 
God's very being. 

To be sure, this doctrine is not stated explicitly nor 
made fully evident by the Master Himself, and we 
shall see the reason for this later, but all His declara- 
tions suppose it implicitly and suggest it logically. 
What is clear is that, in the Synoptic gospels, Jesus 
considers Himself the Son of God in a special sense, 
and as having exceptional relations with God and a 
full share in His most incommunicable privileges and 
powers. We must, therefore, logically infer that 
Jesus enjoys more than human nature. So essential 
is His share in the divine nature that it argues a like 
divinization of His humanity : He is not merely God's 
adopted Son, but He is truly the Son of God, begotten 
of God's very substance. 

IV. The Synoptists 

AND THE FAITH OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 

Was it, indeed, thus that primitive. Tradition under- 
stood Christ Jesus? To get a true and original idea 
of the Saviour's person, we cannot do better than to 
inquire into the belief of the Apostolic Church, the 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 381 

depository of the faith of those who had eaten and 
drank with the Master, who had heard His dis- 
courses and witnessed His miracles, who had beheld 
His ignominy and His triumph. We ask, then, does 
the Apostolic belief agree with the testimony of 
the Synoptic Gospels ? Does it serve to confirm, nay 
even to complete and determine our interpretation 
thereof? It will prove interesting to examine this 
point briefly. 

Acts of the Apostles. 

The author of the Book of Acts, who wrote be- 
tween the years 62-80 A. D., made use of earlier docu- 
ments which, in turn, date from the very cradle days 
of the Church. This much is admitted by all critics. 
In particular, the discourses which the first chapters 
present the Apostles as having uttered on the day after 
Pentecost, display remarkable features that appear 
to guarantee their full authenticity. What idea, then, 
do these discourses give us of the Lord Jesus? 

Schmiedel considers the Christology of S. Peter's 
discourses . . . '' important in the highest degree . . . 
A representation of Jesus so simple, and in such exact 
agreement with the impression left by the most genu- 
ine passage of the first three gospels, is nowhere else 
to be found in the whole New Testament. It is hardly 
possible not to believe that the Christology of the 
speeches of Peter must have come from a primitive 
source. It is nevertheless a fact sufficiently surpris- 
ing that it has been transmitted to us by a writer who 
in other places works so freely with his sources ". 
S. Luke's fidelity in reproducing the discourses of the 
chief of the apostles along with their primitive Chris- 
tology seems really, on the contrary, to warrant us in 
believing that he does not retouch his documentary 
sources as much as critics wish to maintain.^ 

1 Schmiedel, art.: Acts of the Apostles, E. B., par. 14, 
col. 48. 



382 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Jiilicher recognizes that *' the discourses of Peter, 
more than those of S. Paul, give out a Judaic tone 
that recalls the Old Testament ". But the explanation 
which this critic gives of it is quite insufficient; for 
he says : " This proves simply the good taste and 
rather historic tact of the author ".^ 

Headlam thinks that '* we cannot account for the 
special feature of these discourses unless we admit 
that the author has drawn from good authorities and 
that he was well acquainted with the facts and the per- 
sons whom he describes. The discourses are vivid, 
varied, too well suited to the circumstances to be 
substantially mere exercises in rhetoric ".^ 

What idea, therefore, do these discourses give us of 
the Lord Jesus? The whole apologetic endeavor of 
the Apostles is to prove to the Jews that Jesus is truly 
the Messiah predicted by the prophets. We are 
aware that they need not have insisted first of all 
upon what was possibly divine in the personality of 
this Christ. As they spoke to the very people who 
had known Him during His earthly life, they pre- 
sented Jesus to them just as He had appeared in His 
humanity : that is, as a man accredited by God because 
of the signs and wonders which God had wrought 
through Him amongst His people; as a servant of 
God, who died upon the cross after spending His life 
in performing miracles, and who, by His resurrection, 
entered into glory.^ 

But Jesus' disciples call Him " the Son of God ", 
as well as Christ the Servant. To Him are attributed 
qualities and powers that place Him incomparably 
above men and angels. He appears rather as Medi- 

1 Jiilicher, op. cit., p. 380. 

2 Headlam, art: Acts of the Apostles, H. D., p. 34. 

3 Ac. ii. 36 ; iii. 18 ; v. 42 ; ix. 20, 22 ; xvii. 3 ; xviii. 5, 28 ; 
xxiv. 24; xxvi. 23; Ac. ii. 22; Ac. iii, 13, 26; iv. 27, 30; Ac. 
ii. 36; iv. 27; X. 38; xiii. 23. 



JBSUS THE SON OF GOD 383 

ator, standing between God and the world, enjoying 
both the nature of man and of God.^ 

Thus, S. Peter calls Him " the author of Hfe ", the 
''corner-stone" that sustains the whole edifice, the only 
one by whose name we can be saved, for " there is no 
other name under heaven given to men, whereby we 
must be saved"; the "Prince and Saviour", the 
" Lord and Christ ", the " Lord of all ", the " judge 
of the living and of the dead ".^ 

His apostles, moreover, are glad to suffer persecu- 
tion for His sake, to endure outrages, to face im- 
prisonment and death. It is to Him that they ascribe 
their miracles, as it is in His name that they work them. 
It is also in His name that they administer the Baptism 
of penance and of regeneration; it is into His hands 
that Stephen the martyred deacon commends his soul, 
just as, on the cross, Jesus had consigned His own to 
His Father. So that the Christ of the early Church 
is the Christ-Son of God, intimately sharing the 
powers and privileges of God, the wholly divine 
Christ of the Synoptists.^ 

With regard to the texts wherein Jesus is called the 
" Son of God ", it is possible that the word " ^^k " is 
equivalent to " vi6g "^ and should be translated, not as 
" servant ", like the Hebrew term " ebed ", but by 
" child " or " son ". It is employed in this sense in 
Wisdom, in the Didache, and in the I Epistle of S. 
Clement of Rome. As Dalman remarks, in the Syriac 
text of the Peshito, we find the word " bar ",which 
means " the son ".* 

1 Ac. ix. 20 ; xiii. S2- 

2 Thayer, Lexicon, N. T., 4th ed., p. yj : apxvy^Q', ; Ac. iii. 15 ; 
Ac. iv. II ; iv. 12; v. 31 ; xv. 11 ; cf. Ac. xiii. 23; xvi. 31 ; ii. 36; 
X. 36; xi. 20; x. 42. 

3 Ac. V. 41; XV. 26; xxi. 13; cf. ix. 15-16; Ac. ix. 32; xii. 6, 
16; iv. 10; xvi. 18; xix. 13; Ac. ii. 38; x. 48; xix. 5; cf. viii. 
12, 16, 37-38; xvi. 31-33; Ac. vii. 59. 

* Dalman, op. cit., p. 278; cf. Wisd. ii. 13; xii. 20; Teaching 
of the Twelve Apostles, c. iv. 2-3; S. Clement of Rome, 
Epistle I, c lix. 2, 4. 



384 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

B. Weiss says that '' the Messiah who is elevated to 
that * KvptoTjjg ' or rank of lordship must evidently be 
a divine being ".^ 

Colani writes : '* I do not know of a more striking 
proof of the immense impression produced by the 
Galilean than this simple fact: twenty-five years after 
He had been crucified, a Pharisee like S. Paul, could 
see in Him the judge of the living and the dead: the 
fact is no less astonishing on the part of S. Peter, such 
a short time after the Passion." ^ 

Stevens says : " In view of the Septuagint use of 
kurios as a name for Jehovah, it is difficult to see 
how a Jewish mind could attach to the kuriotes, which 
is ascribed to Jesus, any meaning not implying His 
superhuman character ". And again, referring to 
Christ's personality, he writes : !' The absence of such 
a theory from these early chapters of the Acts is 
one of the marks of verisimilitude which they exhibit. 
But the descriptions which they give of Christ's abso- 
lutely unique character and work appear to me to be 
quite irreconcilable with the humanitarian theory of 
His person. ... I believe that the true conclusion 
is that to which we were led in the study of the self- 
testimony of Jesus, namely, that the facts of His teach- 
ing and life, as His immediate disciples knew them, 
warrant the doctrine of His essential divinity which 
was early developed in the Apostolic Church ".^ 

St. Paul's Epistles. 
It was about twenty years after the death of Jesus- 
Christ that Saint Paul wrote his Epistles. All these 
writings, excepting the Epistle of the Hebrews and the 
Pastoral Epistles, are now generally recognized as 
having been written by the great apostle. Even 
Renan himself said that the authenticity of the fol- 

1 Weiss, B., Biblical Theol. N. T., pt. 39, p. 180. 

2 Colani, op. cit., p. 155. 

3 Stevens, Theol. N. T., pp. 266-267. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 385 

lowing Epistles ascribed to S. Paul was unquestion- 
able and unquestioned: i. e. the Epistle to the Gala- 
tians, the two to the Corinthians, and the Epistle to 
the Romans. He also thought that the two Epistles 
to the Thessalonians, and the Epistle to the Phihppians 
were certainly authentic; while, the Epistle to the 
Colossians, as also the Epistle to Philemon, were prob- 
ably written by S. Paul ; although he had some doubts 
whether this Apostle really wrote the Epistle to the 
Ephesians. But he did think that the Epistles to 
Timothy and the Epistle to Titus were unauthentic; 
in other words that these, the Pastoral Epistles, were 
not written by S. Paul in any sense of the word.^ 

Harnack, whom critics nowadays look upon as the 
great historian of primitive Christian literature, has 
definitely settled, so to say, the authenticity of the 
nine Great Epistles ; and, of this number, he assigns 
the two Epistles to the Thessalonians to the years 
48-49 A. D., and the others to the years 52-59 A. D. 
He thinks that S. Paul, was their original author in 
the sense that he left them as the groundwork that was 
later finished and developed by a subsequent editor.^ 

Jiilicher does not regard as decisive the objections 
alleged against the Second Epistle to the Thessa- 
lonians, or against that to the Ephesians ; while he 
readily admits the authenticity of all the others ex- 
cepting the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Pastoral 
Epistles.^ 

B: Weiss practically admits that even the Pastoral 
Epistles have S. Paul as their author, and positively 
rejects only the Epistle to the Hebrews.* 

Zahn, also, takes the same stand ; and moreover 

1 Renan, Saint Paul, pp. v-vi. 

2 Harnack, Die Chron. der Alt. Christ Lift., pt. ii. vol. i. 
p. 238. 

3 Jiilicher, op. cit., p. 90. 

* Weiss, B., Lehrh. der Einleit, N. T., 1897; Das neue Test. 
Handausgabe, 1902, vol. ii. 

25 



386 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

dates the main Epistles at 53-63 A. D., and the Pas- 
toral Epistles at 63-66 A. D.^ 

Jacquier assigns the chief Epistles at 50-62 A. D. 
and the Pastoral Epistles at 62-67 A. D.^ 

What, then, does S. Paul think of Christ-Jesus? 
He always speaks of Him as the Christ (or Anointed), 
the Saviour and Redeemer, who, after giving His life 
as a ransom for sin, through His resurrection en- 
tered into the glory of His Father in order to come 
again at the end of days to establish God's eternal 
reign. Yes, He is man: He was born; He died like 
other men, and, even in glory. He still possesses human 
nature (which He had assumed.) And yet. He is 
not only a man: beyond and prior to His humanity, 
He is the Son of God. The Christ portrayed by S. 
Paul is the Son of God, who had become Man in 
order to serve as Mediator between God and men. 

In the very beginning of the Epistle to the Romans, 
we are told of that " Son who was made of the seed 
of David, according to the flesh ; who was predes- 
tinated the Son of God in power ". And what fully 
shows that He was not simply David's son as re- 
gards His human appearance, but the very Son of 
God, by the real intervention of the Holy Spirit, is 
the fact of His resurrection " from the dead ".^ 

As Rose observes : *' We think that the * -nvevfia 
dyiuavvTjQ^ here refers to the divine nature, to that 
divine nature which the position and the splendor of 
the Son of God requires. . . . The resurrection was 
not its starting-point. If it has revealed and declared 
Jesus Christ as the mighty Son of God; if it was the 
the day of His enthronement, it was not the day of 
His divine birth ".* 

2 Jacquier, Hist, des Liv. N. T., vol. i. 

3 Rom. i. 3-4. 

4 Rose, art. : Rev. Bib., 1903, p. 359 ; Etudes sur la Theol. 
de S. Paul. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 387 

No less clearly, in the main part of this Epistle, 
does the Apostle mention the transcendent Sonship of 
the Saviour as Son of God. For, in speaking of God 
as the author of grace and of glory, the Apostle asks : 
'* He that spared not even His own Son, but de- 
livered Him up for us all, how hath He not also, with 
Him, given us all thmgs?" Again, he tells us that 
God sent " His own Son, in the likeness of sinful 
flesh and of sin " in order to condemn sin in the flesh 
of this very incarnate Son, and to enable us to " walk, 
not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit". 
So that, before His earthly appearance, Jesus pre- 
existed and He pre-existed with God as His only 
Son. " The Son," says Sanday, *' does not become Son 
by His mission, but He is already God's own Son, be- 
fore being sent.^ 

In the Epistle to the Galatians, also, we find the 
same doctrine : Before Christ's coming, we were 
slaves of the Law ; " but when the fulness of time 
was come. God sent His Son ", who was " made of a 
woman ", and who, as He was Man, was born " under 
the Law, that He might redeem them who were un- 
der the Law ". Thus it is that, from being servants, 
we become sons; yea, the adopted Sons of God, 
through Jesus His own Son by nature, and through 
the communication that He Himself has given us of 
His Spirit.^ 

Similarly, the Second Epistle to the Corinthians 
testifies to Christ's pre-existence. In appealing to 
Christ's example in order to encourage the faithful 
in almsgiving, the Apostle manifestly alludes to His 
pre-existence in God before His birth in time : " For 
you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, 

1 Rom. viii. 32 ; Rom. viii. 3. 

2 Sanday, art.: Son of God, H. D., p. 577; Sanday and 
Headlam, Com. on Ep. to Romans; Gal. iv. 4-6; Lightfoot, 
Ep. to Galatians, loth ed., 1890. 



388 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

being rich, He became poor for your sakes; that, 
through His poverty, you might be rich ".^ 

But, before His Incarnation, in what relation did 
this Son of God stand to God Himself? S. Paul in- 
dicates it briefly in several places. Thus, he calls 
Christ " the image of God ", " the image of the in- 
visible God ", a perfect representation of " the wis- 
dom of God ", and *' Wisdom " itself. On the other 
hand he represents Him as a sort of mediator in the 
work of creation : He is " the first-born of every 
creature; for in Him were all things created in 
heaven and earth " ; " all things were created by Him 
and in Him. And He is before all and by Him all 
things consist ".^ 

Such expressions, true enough, apply exactly to 
Christ as Man, as a visible manifestation of God's 
power and goodness, the model and archetype of all 
creation, natural and supernatural. Yet, they seem 
to aim higher and to state how Christ stood towards 
God prior to becoming man and apart from His hu- 
manity. The analogy with the Scripture passages, 
plainly reproduced by S. Paul, referring to the eternal 
origin of the Divine Wisdom, a comparison with the 
first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which 
seems to present the same doctrine even more clearly, 
and, finally, the difficulty of understanding as a simple 
ideal pre-existence in God's thought, the Apostle's 
statement about Christ's priority to every creature, 
and His share in the creative work, — all this seems 
to show that S. Paul's expressions concerning the 
Incarnate Christ refer to the Son of God as pre- 

1 2 Cor. viii. g ; Waite, // Ep. to Corinthians; Von Weiz- 
sacker, The Apostolic Age, vol. i, p. 145. 

"2 Cor. iv. 4; Col. i. 15; i Cor. i. 24, 30; Col. i. 15-17; 
I Cor. viii. 6; Lightfoot, Ep. to Colossians and Philemon, 
8rh ed., 1886 ; Haupt, Die Gefangenshaftshriefe, 7th ed., 1897 ; 
Stevens, Theol. N'. T., p. 395; Sanday, art.: Son of God, H. 
D. ; Abbott, Com. Ep. Ephes. and Col., 1897. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 389 

existing to his earthly advent, and thus designate 
Him as the substantial image of God and His veri- 
table collaborator in the work of creation. 

In S. Paul's thought, therefore, Christ, the Son of 
God, the image of God, who pre-exists before all 
things, and who, along with God, creates all things, 
really shares the divine nature and merits the name 
of God. The Apostle clearly states this when, in his 
exhortation to the Philippians to remain united in the 
charity of Christ by the sacrifice of self-love and of 
personal interests, he appeals to the grand example 
of disinterestedness given by the Saviour : " Let this 
mind be in you ", he says, " which was in Christ 
Jesus; who, being in the form of God," that is, who 
sharing the nature and enjoying the glorious attributes 
of God, " thought it not robbery to be equal with God ; 
but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, 
and, in habit, found as a man. He humbled Himself, 
becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of 
the cross ".^ 

We may remark that, literally speaking, the term 
"robbery", which in Greek is called apirayfibv^ 
means " booty " which implies what is taken by force, 
and hence a possession that is unjustly acquired. Some 
critics, however, give this text in a slightly different 
form : '' Being in the form of God, He did not re- 
gard this equality with God, as " booty ", that is, as a 
rich and precious object which people possess, which 
they guard carefully, and refuse to part with.^ 

The same teaching is found elsewhere in the 
Epistles of S. Paul. Thus, we read : God indeed was 
in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. ... In 
Him (Christ) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead 

1 Phil, ii, 5-7; Haupt, op. cif.; Von Weizsacker, op. cit.; 
Vincent, Commentary Ep. to Philippians and Philemon, 1897; 
Labourt, Notes D'Exeg. sur Ep. Philippians, c. ii. 5-1 1; Rev. 
Bihl., 1898, pp. 402, 553 et seq. 

2 2 Cor. V. 19 ; Col. ii. 9 ; Rom. ix. 5. 



390 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

corporeally ", that is substantially and under bodily 
form. And if, " according to the flesh " He is of the 
race of Israel, He is " over all things, God, blessed 
forever ".^ 

The text of Romans ix. 5, it should be noted, is 
thus rendered in the Tischendorf-Gebhardt edition: 
''(The Israelites) of whose race is Christ according 
to the flesh: God, who is over all things, (is) blessed 
forever. Amen." We have, in the foregoing cita- 
tions, followed the text of Nestle's edition, which 
agrees with those of Westcott-Hort, of Weymouth, 
and of Weiss.2 

In the Epistle to the Hebrews, also, we find the 
same doctrine stated, if not directly, at least under a 
derived form. That very Jesus, who is Christ and the 
Son of God made man, and who is called our 
Mediator and our Pontiff with Almighty God, is styled, 
" the brightness of His glory and the figure of His 
substance ", as the One " by whom He also made the 
world " ; since to Him is applied the Psalmist's words : 
" Thou, in the beginning, O Lord, didst found the 
earth : and the works of Thy hands are the heavens ".^ 

To quote Renan : " Everything leads us to suppose 
that the Epistle to the Hebrews was edited between 
65 A. D. and 70 A. D., and probably in the year 66 
A. D. . . . This writer . . . represents himself as 
having been a hearer, not of Jesus, but of those who 
had heard him, and as a witness of the ' signs and 



1 Text of Tischendorf-Gebhar.dt, Westcott-Hort, Wey- 
mouth, B. Weiss ; Weiss, B., Bihl. Theol. N. T., par. 76, vol. i, 
P- 393; Sanday and Headlam, Com. Ep. to Romans, 1895; 
Stevens. Theol. N. T., p. 397 ; Durand, art. : Rev. Bihlique, 
1903, P- 550 • Eci Divinite de Jesus Christ dans S. Paul Ep. 
Rom., ix. 5. 

2Heb. ii. 4; V. 7; X. 5; Heb. ii. 17; iv. 14; v. 1-7; vii. 24; 
ix. 7, 15, 24; X. 12; xii. 2, 24; xiii. 15; Heb. i. 3; cf. Wisd, 
vii. 7, 25-26; Heb. i. 2; ii. 10; i. 10; cf. Ps. cii, 26, 

3 Hebr. i. 10. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 391 

wonders ' manifested by the apostles by ' the gift of 
the Holy Spirit '. Still, he held a high rank in the 
Church. . . . The mere fact of addressing an Epistle 
to an important Church shows him to be a man of 
consequence. . . . The likeliest of all (authors) is 
Barnabas ".^ 

Harnack, also, thinks that this Epistle was written 
by S. Barnabas, who edited it shortly after S. Paul's 
time, say between 65-96 A. D. 

Such views are not, of course, a matter for dis- 
cussion in this book; but we may remark that, from 
the doctrinal standpoint, the Epistle to the Hebrews 
is generally recognized as having a relation to the 
other Epistles of S. Paul; and that, to some extent, 
this fact warrants us in viewing it as the expression 
of the Apostle's thought. If, however, we consider 
this Epistle as a work that did not have S. Paul as its 
author it would have, from our point of view, a still 
greater value, as an authorized and very clear con- 
firmation of the apostle's teaching concerning the per- 
sonality of Christ Jesus. ^ 

Other critics' opinions about the date of this Epistle 
may be thus given: Zahn thinks that it was written 
about 80 A. D. and perhaps by the disciple named 
Apollo. Jiilicher dates it at 75-90 A. D. and sees in 
it the work of a Paulinizing Christian. B. Weiss 
claims that it was written by S. Barnabas between 
65-66 A. D. ; while Jacquier, who dates it before 70 
A. D., makes it depend upon S. Paul.^ 

Stevens, also, in writing of this Epistle, says : " For 
our author, therefore, Christ must have been distin- 
guished from God, the fons et origo of divinity, but, 
at the same time, must have been an eternal being, 

1 Renan, Saint Paul, p. Ixi; cf. Heb. ii. 3-4; Anti-Christ, 
p. 9. 

2 Harnack, Die Chronologie, pt. ii, vol. i, p. 475. 

3 Zahn, Einleit N. T., vol. ii; Jiilicher, op. cit.; Weiss, B., 
Lehrb. Einleit. N. T.; Jacquier, Hist, des Liv, N, T, 



392 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

sharing the divine nature and attributes. His doc- 
trine is, in, substance, the same 'higher Christology ', 
which we find in Paul and John. Jesus Christ is, 
in the strict sense, divine, and, at the same time, per- 
sonally distinct from God, alike in His historic mani- 
festation, His glorified life in heaven, and His 
eternal pre-existence and activity ".^ 

To resume : S. Paul more frequently views Jesus 
the Saviour in His humanity; not exactly as Son of 
God pre-existing in God, but as the Son of God in- 
carnate. Hence it is that he so often distinguishes 
Him from God : " To us there is but one God, the 
Father, of which are all things, and we unto Him; 
and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, 
and we by Him "... There is one God and one 
mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus : 
Who gave Himself a Redemption for all, a testimony 
in due times. . . . One Lord, one faith, one baptism ", 
as there is but " one only God and Father of all, who 
is above all, and through all, and in us all ".^ 

In thus insisting upon the unity of God, the Apostle 
does not mean to exclude the divinity of Jesus the 
Saviour. The context proves that He speaks thus 
only in opposition to the manifold gods of paganism 
and thence to infer the unity of our Mediator and 
Lord. If, on the other hand, He seems to place 
Christ on a level with God and yet in contrast with 
God, this does not at all mean that he judges His na- 
ture as foreign to that of God. The very titles of 
Mediator and Lord given to Christ seem to suppose 
a real participation in the divine nature; this is sim- 
ply because he considers Him as constituted with His 
human nature, and because, in His human nature, 
the Son of God is not so much God equal to His 
Father as Mediator between God and men. 

1 Stevens, Theol. N. T., p. 504- 

2 I Cor. viii. 6 ; i Tim. ii. 5 ; Eph. iv. 5-6. 



I 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



393 



Says Stevens : " Not only does Paul apply to 

. Christ the term kurios, the Septuagint name for 

Jehovah, but he freely applies to Him passages from 

the Old Testament which were spoken of Jehovah." ^ 

The Apostle, then, may mention Christ apart from 
God, and yet along with Him, as he does in the usual 
formula of salutation : " The peace of God the Father 
be given to you, and that of His Son Christ Jesus !" 
He may present Him as our Mediator and Redeemer, 
as the one by whom we have been reconciled to God, 
redeemed and justified, by whom we have access to 
the Father, and who intercedes for us at the right hand 
of God. But this does not at all keep him. from de- 
claring Jesus the Son of God in the real sense, pre- 
existing before every creature, collaborating in the 
work of creation, possessing the divine nature in its 
fulness, constituted as God's equal even in the very 
form of God, and God blessed forever above all 
beings.^ 

" It was, therefore, very natural," writes Loisy, 
" that men should pray to God through Jesus, with 
Jesus, in Jesus, and soon come to pray to Jesus Him- 
self, if, indeed, they did not do so from the beginning, 
since He was always with His own, ready to hear and 
with power to grant their prayers. . . . The inter- 
course of the Christian was in heaven with his Lord; 
if he distinguished God from Christ, none the less he 
saw God in Christ, so close and indissoluble was the 
union of the two; praying to Christ, he prayed to 
God, although the solemn prayers of the community 
were addressed to God through Christ, Jesus was, as 
it were, the countenance of God turned toward hu- 
manity ". We may note, by the way, that it is this 

1 Stevens, op. cit, p. 390 ; cf. Rom. x. 13 ; Joel ii. 32 ; i Cor. 
X. 22; Deut. xxxii. 34; Weiss, op. cit., vol. i, p. 392; Rose, 
art. ct. : Rev. Bib., 1903, p. 345. 

22 Cor. V. 18-19; Rom. iii. 22, 24, 25; v. 10; Eph. ii. 18; 
Rom. V. I ; Col. iii. 17. 



394 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Christ Mediator who is more directly presented to 
view in the CathoHc Epistles of S. Peter, S. James,- 
and S. Jude.^ 

The Johannine Writings. 

If, now, we consider the description given of Christ 
in the Johannine writings, the Prologue to the Fourth 
Gospel, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse, we will 
find that He is none other than the Christ mentioned 
in the Epistles of S. Paul. He is truly man; and, in 
His humanity. He is our Reparator and Mediator with 
God. He is mentioned along with God the Father, 
whom He calls His God ; but He also sits at His right 
hand and shares His royalty. On the other hand, 
Christ is also " the Son of God " and His only true 
Son. He was with His Father before coming into 
this world ; for, " in this is shown the love of God for 
us, that He has sent His only Son into the world in 
order that we may have life by Him. . . . The 
Father hath sent His Son as Saviour of the world. 
. . . He hath loved us, and He hath sent His Son as a 
victim of propitiation for our sins ".^ 

S. Paul identified Christ, in His divine life, with the 
Wisdom of God described in the Sapiential Books : so, 
too, the author of the Johannine writings identifies 
Him with the Logos, that is, the Thought, or Word, 
of God, as the Greek equivalent read in the philo- 
sophical language of His time. As " Wisdom ", the 
Word was " with God from the beginning " ; as " Wis- 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 252, 253 ; Rom. 
viii. 34. 

2 Jo. i. 14; I Ep. Jo. iv. 2; 2 Ep. Jo. V. 7; I Ep. Jo. ii. i; 
iii. 5; iv. ID, 14; Apoc. v. 9; iii. 2, 12; i Ep. Jo. i. 3; 2 Ep. Jo. 
V. 3; Apoc. i. I, 4-6; iii. 2, 5, 21; v. 7, 13; vi. 16; vii. 10; 
xi. 15; xii. 10; xiv. 4, 12; xx. 6; xxi. 22; xxii. i; Jo. i. 14, 18; 
XX. 31; I Ep. Jo. ii. 22; iv. 15; V. i, 5 ; Apoc. ii. 18; i Ep. Jo. 
iv. 9, 10, 14 ; cf. I Ep. Jo. i. 2 ; iv. 2 ; iii. 8 ; v. 6, 20 ; 2 Ep. Jo. 
v. 7; Jo. i. 4. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



395 



dom ", He had co-operated in the work of the world's 
creation : " By Him all things were made, and without 
Him was made nothing that was made ".^ 

"As regards the name and the idea of the Logos," 
says Loisy, " S. John is influenced by the Alexandrian 
and Philonic philosophy. He does not, indeed, bor- 
row Philo's theory, but rather contradicts it. Still, 
he takes it as his starting-point, and lives in its sphere ; 
he uses it extensively. He views the Word as the 
Oracle, the organ of creation and of revelation ; and 
thus makes it agree with the Word of God mentioned 
in the Old Testament. Instead of being an abstrac- 
tion, devoid of a well-defined personahty, the Word 
is portrayed as a personal power. It is not an inter- 
mediary being: its nature is strictly divine. It is not 
called upon to fill up the abyss separating an abstract 
God from the world ; for, to S. John, God is personal 
and living. The relations of the Word with God are 
those of person to person ".^ 

Lagrange thinks it certain " that the doctrine of the 
Incarnate Word is a theological adaptation, but one 
which S. John could have made only by supposing 
that the divinity of Jesus was admitted as indisputable 
— which would permit us to give the Word its true 
character ".^ 

S. Paul had also portrayed Christ, the Wisdom of 
God and Son of God, as true God: so likewise does 
S. John describe Christ, the Word of God and Son 
of God, as really sharing the divine essence and 
meriting the name of God : " He is true God and 
Eternal Life. . . In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was God, and the Word was with 
God ". The Incarnate Word of God, the Son of God 
made man, was to be the Mediator between God and 

1 Jo. I, 3, 10 ; Grill, op cit 1902. 

2 Loisy, Rev. d'Hist., 1902, p. 455. 

3 Lagrange, art: Bullet, de Lift. Ecct., 1904, p. 8, n. I. 



396 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

man; owing to His pre-existence, He participated in 
the entire nature of God, and, after His incarnation, 
in the full nature of man : He was true God and true 
man. Such, then, is the idea given of the person of 
Christ Jesus in the Epistles of S. Paul and in the writ- 
ings of S. John.^ 

The Catholic Church has invariably held to this 
idea. In recognizing in Christ only one divine 
Person, namely the divine Person of the Word, the 
Church has always taken great care to safeguard the 
reality and perfection of His human nature. Jesus is 
true man, really formed of a body and soul, fully ex- 
ercising His intelHgence, free-will, and activity; but, 
because of that union which is termed hypostatic. His 
perfect humanity is, from the very first, possessed by 
the divinity and under the sway of the Person of the 
Word. Hence, His entire human activity must be 
ascribed to the Word of God who possesses it: no 
action of His is merely human : but, while all such 
actions are perfectly human, in their active principle, 
all are also divine, and perfectly so, as regards their 
principle of dignity and merit ; for Jesus is not merely 
a man, but is also God, and, in an indissoluble man- 
ner, the God-Man, 

The most perfect expression of this Christian dogma 
is found in the Athanasian Creed : " Now the right 
faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God is both God and man. 
He is God, of the substance of His Father, begotten 
before the world; and He is man of the substance of 
His Mother, born in the world : Perfect God and per- 
fect man ; of rational soul and human flesh subsisting ; 
Equal to the Father according to His Divinity ; and less 
than the Father according to His humanity. Who, 
although He be both God and man, yet He is not two, 

^Jo. i. i; I Ep. Jo. i. 1-2; cf. Apoc. xix. 13; Jo. i. 3, 10; 
I Ep, Jo. V. 20; i. 1-2; Jo. i. I. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 397 

but one Christ : One, not by the conversion of the God- 
head into flesh, but by the assuming of human nature 
unto God: One altogether, not by confusion of sub- 
stance, but by unity of person. For as the rational 
soul and the body constitutes one man, so God and 
man is one Christ." This Creed was introduced into 
the Roman Breviary at an early epoch. Its origin is 
generally assigned to Central France, and dated dur- 
ing the fifth or sixth century. Its authorship has been 
ascribed to some one of the writers belonging to the 
School of Aries, as S. Caesarius or S. Hilary, or to 
that of Lerins, as S. Vincent or S. Honoratus.^ 

Of course, when we try to represent to ourselves 
just how the hypostatic union between the two natures 
of Christ in the unity of the divine Person of the 
Word, actually operates, we are confronting a pro- 
found mystery that defies our human perception. It is 
none the less true that the doctrine thus expressed is 
the very interpretation of the data supplied by S. Paul's 
Epistles and the Johannine Writings. 

Harnack claims that the identification of Christ 
with the Logos was due to those Greek philosophers 
who were converted during the second century. And 
yet he is obliged to admit that " ancient teachers be- 
fore them had also called Christ the Logos among the 
many predicates Avhich they ascribed to Him ; nay, one 
of them, John, had already formulated the proposition : 
' The Logos is Jesus Christ ' ... It was, indeed, a 
marvelous formula ; and was not the way prepared for 
it, nay, hastened by the speculative ideas about the 
Messiah propounded by Paul and other ancient teach- 
ers? "^ 

Renan had written long before : " The belief that 
Jesus was the Logos of the Alexandrian theology 

1 Burn, The Athanasian Creed; Tixeront, art.: Athanase, 
Diet, de Theologie Cath. de Vacant. 

2 Harnack, What w Christianity F p. 218. 



398 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

would no doubt suggest itself very early, and that in 
a strict logical way. . . . But in the year 68 He is 
already called " the Word of God ". . . . The doc- 
trine of the Epistle to the Colossians is much like 
that of the Fourth Gospel: Jesus is represented in 
that epistle as the " image of the invisible God ", the 
* first-born of every creature ', through whom ' every- 
thing has been created ', who was ' before all things ', 
by whom ' all things consist ', in whom ' dwells the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily ' ".^ 

Again, we read : '' In the later epistles " we find " a 
theory of the Christ, conceived as a sort of divine 
Person, much like the Logos-theory, which later took 
its final form in the writings ascribed to John . . . 
His earher, and doubtless genuine writings have in 
them the germ of this later style. In certain relations 
the terms ' Christ ' and ' God ' are almost interchange- 
able : Christ exercises the offices of divinity ; like God, 
His name is invoked in prayer; He is the essential 
mediator of approach to God. . . . Veneration for 
Him, which in James does not go beyond dulia or 
hyperdulia, extends with Paul to a true latria, such as 
no Jew had ever paid to a man or woman born ". 
Such admissions suffice to prove eloquently the perfect 
accord that exists between the teaching of S. Paul 
and that of John on the subject of the Person of 
Christ, the Word of God.^ 

Harnack also holds that the real divinity of Christ 
the God-Man was elaborated only during the third 
century, and deduced from the prevailing idea of the 
mystery of the Redemption as a genuine elevation to 
the very life of God. With regard to the formula 
of the Logos, he says that " in spite of its sublime 
meaning, it could be also so conceived as to permit of 

1 Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 425; cf. Apoc. xix. 13; Col. i. 15; 
ii. 9- 

2 Renan, Anti-Christ, pp. 83, 84, 85. 



I 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 399 

the bearer of the title not being by any means of a 
truly divine nature but possessing one that was only 
half divine. . . . But if actual interference in the con- 
stitution of human nature and its deification are in- 
volved, then the Redeemer must Himself be God and 
must become man. . . . The Logos, then, must be 
God Himself, and He must have actually become 
man ".^ 

Nevertheless, in a way, Harnack is obliged to re- 
cognize that ''it is true that this conception found 
a safe starting-point in the Gospel, and a support in 
the Pauline theology ". This admission is quite signi- 
ficant. But he forgets to note that the dogma of the 
God-Man existed in the second, as well as in the third 
century.^ 

Thus S. Irenaeus, a valuable witness of the tradi- 
tional faith of the chief centres of Church life during 
the latter half of the second century, views Jesus as 
the Incarnate Word and also gives Him the title of 
"God" and of "God Incarnate ".« 

Tatian, also, who, as Harnack admits, wrote about 
150 A. D., speaks to the Greeks of " a God born in 
the form of man." * 

S. Justin, writing at the same period, proves from 
the Scriptures that Christ is " God ", and that He 
" should be adored ". He speaks of " God Incarnate " 
just as did S. Irenaeus and Tatian.^ 

S. Ignatius of Antioch, at the beginning of the 

1 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 248, 249. 

2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 249. 

3 S. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. i, c. viii, n. 5 ; bk. 3, 
c. xviii, n. 7; c. xix, n. 2; c. xx, n. 4; c. xxi, n. i : 6 Qebg ovv av- 
dpuTTog eyevero; bk. 1 7, n. 3. 

* Tatian, Orat. Against the Greeks, n. 21 : Qebv iv avOp^irov 
fJ-opcpy yeyovEvai. 

^ S. Justin, Dial. Trypho, n. 56, 61, 63, 68, 126, 127, 128; n. 48: 
Qeog . TvpoaKVvrjTog Geof (,n> koI yeykwrjiac avOpuirog-; cf. n. 

34: Kat 6eoc . . . Kai avBpoTroc. 



400 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

second century, also refers to Jesus Christ as " God ", 
and as '' Our God ". To the faithful at Ephesus he 
writes : " Our Physician is one who is at once flesh 
and spirit, begotten although unbegotten, God incar- 
nate, true life in death, formed of Mary and of God, 
at first capable and then incapable of suffering, — 
Jesus Chris't, our Lord ".^ 

It would seem, too, that Harnack forgets that the 
dogma of the God-Man was taught implicitly in all 
S. Paul's Epistles and in the writings traditionally 
ascribed to S. John; so that the formal identification 
of Christ with God was for later Tradition what Renan 
called " a mere matter of words ".^ 

Nor did the Fathers of the Early Church invent 
this formula of the Logos. S. John had said : " The 
Word was God. . . . And the Word was made flesh ". 
And again : '' He is true God and eternal Mie ". And 
he had also described S. Thomas the Apostle as ex- 
claiming to the Risen Saviour : " My Lord and my 
God". And had not S. Paul called Christ: "He 
who is above all, God blessing forever " ? ^ 

Agreement zvith the Facts of History. 

The foregoing data are not only a matter of un- 
questionable belief for the faithful ; but must be 
deemed by any impartial critic as in full accord with 
historical truth. In fact, the data found in S. Paul's 
Epistles cannot be due to a personal and inexact view 
on his part. They must surely agree with the faith 
of the Church in his day, with the still vital tra- 
dition of Christ and His Apostles. S. Paul wrote 
scarcely twenty years after the death of Jesus, and 

1 S. Ignatius of Antioch, Epist. to Ephesians, n. 15, 18; to 
Romans, n. 3, 6; to Polycarp, n. 8; to Thall. n. 7; to Smyr- 
neans, n, i, 10; to Ephesians, n. 7. 

2 Renan, Saint Paul, p. 164. 

3 Jo. i. I, 14; I Ep. Jo. V. 20; Jo. XX. 28; Rom. ix. 5. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 401 

many persons were then living who had known the 
Master, who had hved with Him, heard His discourses, 
witnessed His death and resurrection. Of the risen 
Christ the Apostle could say : *' He was seen by 
more than five hundred brethren at once: of whom 
many remain until this present time, and some have 
fallen asleep ".^ 

Harnack, however, apparently thinks that S. Paul's 
statements disclose the personal and inexact character 
of His private opinions ; for he says : '' Under the in- 
fluence of the Messianic theology, and greatly im- 
pressed by the personality of Christ, Paul became the 
author of the speculative idea that, not only was God 
in Christ, but that Christ Himself was possessed of 
a peculiar nature of a heavenly kind ".^ 

Renan's opinion, of which Harnack's here as else- 
where is but the reproduction, is thus stated : " Paul 
became mystical, theological, speculative after having 
been at first practical. . . . His idea of Christ is 
changed. He dreams thenceforth less about the Son 
of God appearing in the clouds and presiding over 
the general resurrection, than of a Christ established 
as an active participant in the divinity. . . . What is 
certain is that the great images of the first Apocalypse 
and of the resurrection, otherwise so familiar to Paul 
and in some manner represented in each page of the 
Epistles belonging to the second and third journeys, 
and even of that to the Philippians, hold a secondary 
place in the last writings of his captivity. The views 
there given are supplanted by a theory that views 
Christ as a sort of divine Person — a theory very anal- 
ogous to that of the Logos, which is to attain definite 
form in the writings ascribed to S. John." ^ 

1 I Cor. XV. 6. 

2 Harnack, op. cit., p. 199. 

3 Renan, The Apocalypse, pp. 75, 76. 

26 



402 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Elsewhere he says : " The theory of the Logos na- 
turally resulted from the disappointments of the first 
Christian generation. What m.en had hoped to see 
realized in the actual order of events was transferred 
to the ideal. Every delay in the coming of Jesus was 
one step more towards His deification; and this is so 
true that, at the very hour when the last Adventist 
dream vanished, the absolute divinity of Jesus was 
proclaimed " ? ^ 

Thus does Renan feel compelled to estabHsh a doc- 
trinal contrast between S. Paul's earlier and later 
Epistles, which he apparently supposes as separated 
by a considerable period of time. But the Epistle to 
the Colossians, written in 62 A. D., did in reality ap- 
pear shortly after those to the Romans and Corin- 
thians which were respectively written in 58 and 57 
A. D. Harnack's chronology is : Col. 57-59, or 56-58 : 
Rom. 53-54, or, 52-53 ; Cor. and Galatians 53 or 52. 
S. Paul's later Epistles, however, should be dated still 
earher, say from 8 to 10 years before the Fall of Jeru- 
salem in 70 A. D. Now, had the Church, in that ter- 
rible year, ceased to await the coming of Christ for 
the last judgment? Is it not in the year 68 A. D. that 
Renan himself dates the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
wherein we read : *' For yet a little while, and a very 
little while, and He that is to come will come, and 
will not delay " ? And, as for the Apocalypse, while 
most modern critics assign it to 95 A. D., he dates it 
in 68 A. D.2 

H, finally, we compare S. Paul's earlier with his 
later Epistles, we must recognize that they contain the 
same doctrine about Christ's person. Christ, the true 
Son of God, pre-existing before His Incarnation, is 
not only the Christ portrayed in the Epistle to the 
Colossians, but, as we have seen, is also the Christ de- 

1 Renan, Life of Jestis, p. 126. 

2 Heb. X. 27. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



403 



\ 



scribed in the Epistle to the Corinthians, Galatians, 
PhiHppians and Romans.^ 

Curiously enough this is also admitted by Renan 
who says : '' The most energetic expressions of the 
Epistle to the Colossians were only a short advance 
upon those of the anterior Epistles " ; and, in a note, 
he refers to very characteristic passages : " See es- 
pecially Rom. ix. 5; I Cor. viii. 6; II Cor. v. 19". 
(S. Paul, p. X and note). Elsewhere when speaking 
of the Christ of the early Epistles, which were written 
about 54 A. D., he observes : " Jesus is the Lord, the 
Christ, a personage entirely superhuman, not yet God 
( !) but very near being it ( !). One hves in Him, 
one dies in Him, one rises in Him. He was in truth 
already a divine personality, and when the time comes 
to identify Him with God, it is only a question of 
words, a mere * communication of idioms ', as the 
theologians say. We shall see that Paul himself at- 
tained to this : the most advanced formulas that are 
to be found in the Epistle to the Colossians existed 
already in germ in the older Epistles. ' For to us there 
is but one God, the Father of whom are all things 
and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom 
are all things and we by Him' (I Cor. viii. 6). A 
few words more, and Jesus shall be the Logos, Creator, 
and the most exaggerated formulas of the consubstan- 
tialists of the fourth century can already be fore- 
seen .^ 

S. Paul, let us remember, keeps in permanent touch 
with the Church of the Apostolic age. During his 
first missionary journey, his companion was S. Barna- 
bas, one of the most eminent members of the flourish- 
ing Church centre at Jerusalem, and one of the ori- 
ginal disciples of Christ's apostles. From Antioch, 
where they had founded a numerous Christian com- 

1 Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 343. Engl. tr. p. 386. 

2 Rom. ix. 5 ; i Cor. viii. 6 ; 2 Cor. v. 19 ; Renan, Saint Paul, 
pp. ix, 164; I Cor. viii. 6; Col. i. 16; Jo. i. 3. 



404 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



munity, S. Paul and S. Barnabas go to Jerusalem for 
the purpose of consulting the Twelve Apostles, and, 
these authorized guardians of the Saviour's teachings 
do not at all reprimand him for his doctrines. On his 
return from Jerusalem to Antioch, S. Paul was ac- 
companied by two disciples of the apostles, namely 
Judas and Silas, the latter eventually settling down at 
Antioch and becoming the Apostle's companion on 
new missions/ 

There is, then, a constant interchange of courtesies 
and the utmost harmony between the two Christian 
churches of Jerusalem and Antioch. Necessarily the 
relations were equally frequent and seemingly just as 
cordial, between the divers communities evangelized 
by S. Paul and the members of those Church centres 
founded by the other apostles. Thus he writes to 
the Romans; and although he had hitherto been un- 
able to visit them as he had desired, and hence did not 
claim them as his peculiar children in Christ, never- 
theless he feels assured that their faith, whose fame 
is world-wide, is the same as his own ; and, as a matter 
of fact, when he reaches Rome as a captive, the breth- 
ren there greet him gladly.^ 

As to the Apostle's visit to Jerusalem, Sabatier says : 
" Is it too hazardous a conjecture to suppose that, 
during the fifteen-day visit he paid to S. Peter in 
Jerusalem, after his conversion, he had carefully asked 
him about the Hfe of their common Master? Are we 
not inclined to think so from S. Paul's remark? Else 
how did this zealous servant of Jesus-Christ obtain 
the full mastery of all that valuable Gospel tradition 
so piously guarded by the early Christian communities 
and the source whence the first three Gospels have 
issued?"^ 

1 Ac. XV.; Gal. ii. i-io. 

2 Ac. XV. 22, 32-34; cf. Ac. xi. 22, 27; xxi. 18; i. 11-15; 
XV. 2-24; i. 8, 11; xxviii. 14-15. 

3 Sabatier, L'Apotre Paul, 3rd ed., p. 66; Gal. i. 18: IcToprjaaL 
Kv(pav. Weiss, B., op. cit, vol. i, p. 279; Von Weizsacker, op, 
cit., vol. i, p. 35. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



405 



It is remarkable, too, that, as is plain from the last 
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, S. Paul sends 
his greetings, or salutations, to many brethren and 
kinsmen who were living at Rome prior to his visit 
to that city. Of course, critics insist that this chapter 
of the Epistle to the Romans really belongs to an 
Epistle to the Ephesians which he had sometime 
written and addressed to the Church in Ephesus. 
This was the impression of Renan, and is also that of 
Jiilicher. But this view has been recently questioned 
by Spitta. This author proves, in the light of recent 
inscriptions, that the Apostle salutes persons who, as 
far as their names are concerned, more probably be- 
long to the Church of Rome than to that of Ephesus. 
On the other hand, Spitta thinks that the extant 
Epistle to the Romans is really composed of two 
parts, and that the second part, which includes the 
last chapter of the received Epistle to the Romans, was 
written by the Apostle at a time when he had already 
become personally acquainted with the members of 
the Church in Rome. What shall we say to this? 
Simply that the thesis advanced by Spitta is far from 
being proved.^ 

If, then, we ask: what did S. Paul think of Christ? 
there is no lack of testimony on this point. And, 
moreover, we are well aware of his opposition to every 
unwarranted innovation in doctrinal matters. So that 
we may rest assured that, on so essential a point as that 
of Christ's divine personahty, S. Paul has not given a 
teaching different from that of the other Apostles, 
and, at all events, the faith that he imparted to his 
Christian followers was of truly apostolic origin. 

" What strikes us in all these statements about 
Christ's pre-existence ", says Beyschlag, " i^s that the 
apostle nowhere really establishes or teaches the pre- 



1 Rom. xvi. ; Renan, Saint Paul, p. Ixix; Julicher, op. cit., 
p. 140; Spitta, op. cit, 1901, 



4o6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

existence of Christ; but, especially in his earlier 
Epistles, presupposes it as familiar to his readers and 
disputed by no one. It must, therefore, have been a 
notion which was not in the least strange even to the 
primitive apostolic Christians before Paul, such for 
example as the readers of the Epistle to the Romans ".^ 

Moreover, the testimony of the Johannine writings 
present, as many critics admit, either his own teach- 
ing, or, at least, the tradition which the beloved dis- 
ciple had handed down to his immediate followers. 
We will, then, find in the sum-total of his testimony 
just exactly what an Apostle thought of the person of 
the Master of whom he had been an assiduous wit- 
ness. This is a valuable confirmation of S. Paul's 
testimony. Of course, we cannot suppose that the 
data supplied by the Johannine writings depend upon 
those given by S. Paul. For, how could we believe 
that the Beloved Disciple allowed his appreciation of 
the Master's personality to be influenced by the views 
of a new-comer like the convert of Damascus? 

If, however, the Epistles of S. Paul, as also the 
Johannine writings, give us the same idea of Jesus' 
personality that His apostles and disciples had treas- 
ured, we cannot help seeing in the Christ of the 
Early Church, the Incarnate Word, the Son of God 
made man, the true Christ of history. 

As regards the writings attributed to S. John, Renan, 
for instance, accepts the Apocalypse, or Revelation, as 
the authentic work of that Apostle ; and thinks that it 
was written in 68 A. D. ; while such Johannine writ- 
ings as the Gospel and the Epistles were written by 
one of his disciples, — probably by the one whom 
Papias calls John the Elder, that is, by one of the 
Ancients of the Church in Ephesus.^ 

Harnack says that all the Johannine writings were 

1 Beyschlag. N T. Theol. II, p. 76. 

2 Julicher, op. cit, pp. 375, 389- 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



407 



written by the same disciple who had recorded the 
ApostoHc tradition early in the second century/ 

Jiilicher regards as worthless the assignment of the 
Johannine compositions to John the Presbyter, of 
whom we have no reliable information ; while he thinks 
that the Fourth Gospel was composed by a Christian 
who lived during the early part of the second century, 
and who wrote this work in dependence upon S. John. 
" This writer ", he says, " was convinced that he re- 
produced the portrait of Christ exactly as he had re- 
ceived it from John ". It was to John that '' he 
owed, as did the entire Asiatic church of his time 
his knowledge of the Lamb of God, of His divine 
character, of the absolute character of His re- 
demption "." 

Wendt and Soltau think that the final editor of the 
Fourth Gospel employed an earlier document written 
by S. John himself.^ 

Lately, the full authenticity of the Johannine writ- 
ings has been upheld by B. Weiss, Zahn, Reynolds, J. 
Drummond, Sanday, and Calmes.* 

So that, in rejecting even the partial authenticity of 
the Johannine writings, H. Holtzmann, J. Reville, 
Schmiedel, and Loisy advance merely their personal 
theories and thus do not merit the approval of most 
critics.^ 

iHarn. Chronol. Pt. II. vol. I, p. 656. 

'^Einleit in das N. T., 1901, p. 324- 

3 Wendt, op. cit., 2nd ed., Ger. ; Soltau, art. : Zeit. fur N, T. 
IViss., vol. i, pp. 140-149. 

4 Weiss, Lehrb. der Einleit. N. T., 3rd ed., 1897; Zahn, 
Einl. in das N. T., vol. ii, 1899 ; Reynolds, art. : John, Gospel 
of, H. D. ; Drummond, J., The Fourth Gospel, 1903; Sanday, 
The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel, 1904; Calmes, L'Evang. 
Selon S. Jean, 1904. 

^ Holtzmann, H.. op. cit., 3rd ed., 1892 ; Reville, J., Le 
Quatr. Evang., 1901 ; Schmiedel, art, : John's Gospel, E, B. ; 
Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., 1903. 



4o8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

In referring to the attitude of Christian thought 
during the ApostoUc age, Harnack says : " Where 
can we find, in the history of mankind, any similar 
instance of men eating and drinking with their master, 
seeing him in the characteristic aspects of his human- 
ity, and then proclaiming him not only as the great 
prophet and revealer of God, but as the divine disposer 
of history, as the ' beginning ' of God's creation, and 
as the inner strength of a new life? . . . That, in 
spite of suffering and death, it was possible to see in 
him the promised Messiah, and that, side by side with 
the vulgar Messianic image of him, men should have 
regarded him as the present Lord and Saviour, — ^this 
is what is astonishing ! ^ 

Harnack further remarks that, " besides the four 
written Gospels, we possess a fifth, unwritten; and, 
in many respects, its voice is clearer and more effective 
than that of the other four, — I mean the united testi- 
mony of the first Christian community. It enables us 
to gather what was the prevailing impression made by 
this personality, and in what sense His disciples under- 
stood His words and the testimony which He gave of 
Himself ".2 

It is indeed surprising, if not inconceivable, that 
the direct witnesses of Christ's words and works, the 
immediate inheritors of the tradition held by such 
witnesses, — persons whose powers of observation and 
practical turn of mind had been fully borne out by 
the events of history; — it is improbable that Apostles 
and disciples could have erred so strangely, so egre- 
giously, as to regard as the true Son of God that 
Master who had so plainly asserted His humanity, and 
as to ascribe a divine origin and nature to Him whose 
sufferings and death were a scandal to the Jews, un- 
less all His words and deeds were meant to authorize, 

1 Harnack, What is Christianity f pp. 166-167. 

2 Harnack, Christianity and History, p. 57. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 409 

nay more, to force upon them such a belief. The im- 
partial critic must admit that the early Christfahs' be- 
lief in Christ's divinity can have no basis except the 
facts of history. 

Wernle, however, insists that " Jesus Christ is op- 
posed to the old gods as the new and stronger God. 
That is the meaning of the ' Divinity of Christ '. The 
idea arose amongst the heathen, and must be conceived 
as an antithesis to the heathen gods. The notion is 
as little Jewish as it possibly can be. The Jews sim- 
ply have no room for a second being called God in the 
strict sense of the word. . . . But among the heathen, 
apotheosis was exceedingly common. The number of 
their deities is not limited. . . . The Gentile Christian 
immediately gives Jesus a place in his worship. He 
sings his ' carmen Christo quasi Deo ', . . . The new 
God, Christ, is contrasted with the heathen gods ' .^ 

Schmidt, in fact, ascribes the origin of this dogma 
to the Hellenic circles wherein the Jewish mode of 
thought was " influenced by Greek speculation " and 
by the religious habits of the Greco-Roman world.^ 

Such views do not square with fact ; for, as we have 
seen, the dogma of Christ's divinity was a part of the 
belief of the early Christians in Palestine, of Jesus' 
own disciples : it is found in is own statements and 
impHed in His very Hfe. 

The superhuman character of Jesus' own testi- 
mony and His true position as an historical person- 
age is, indeed, expressly admitted by Wernle. Whilst 
Schmidt says that as " the conception of ' the Son of 
God ', who is Himself God, which comes distinctly to 
view in the Fourth Gospel, so this itself is the pro- 
duct of a long development of thought. . . . The con- 
tribution of Jesus Himself to this development was 
the indelible expression of His own personality ". 

1 Wernle, op. cit., pp. 114, 115, 116; above p. 271. 

2 Schmidt, art. : Son of God, E, B., par, 22, col. 4702, 



4IO CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

And Bousset, like Harnack, extols Jesus' transcendent 
personality and wondrous influence, His position as 
the Son of God in a unique manner, as the Founder 
of the final religion, as " the way, the truth, and the 
life ".^ 

A study of the faith of the early Christians, as 
also the content of the Synoptic gospels, should there- 
fore suffice to show the agreement between these 
sources of testimony. Christ, the Incarnate Son of 
God, who, as the Second divine Person, essentially 
shares the divine nature, just as He really shares all 
human nature after the moment of His Incarnation: 
such truly is Christ Jesus, as we behold Him after 
studying the first three gospels. And the faith of the 
early Church corresponds exactly with the data thus 
presented, which are the faithful reproduction, the 
authentic interpretation of the intricate combination 
of human and divine elements so evidently manifest 
in the personality of our Saviour. 

V. Christ's Reserve in Revealing His Divinity. 

I. A RESULT OF THE SAVIOUR's POSITION. 

Why, we may ask, is not the transcendent character 
of Jesus' really divine filiation more expressly revealed, 
nor more formally stated in His own sayings? Rea- 
soning from His reserve in manifesting His Messianic 
dignity, we have previously inferred that this was to 
be expected. The motive lies in the Saviour's very 
position itself, so extraordinary and unusual. To 
consider the actual conditions : We behold the Word, 
true Son of God and true God, forsaking the abode of 
His Heavenly Father in order to become man, as 
other men, and, whilst living among men, devoting 
Himself to the work of teaching and saving souls. 

1 Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 229 ; Engl, tr, p. 272 ; Schmidt, 
art. : Son of God, E. B., par. 25, col. 4704 ; Bousset, Was 

wissen wir von Jesiisf 1904. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 411 

What an exceptionally complex and delicate position! 
Could He, with any good reason, reveal His divinity 
openly ? Could He declare directly and undisguisedly : 
" I am to all appearances a man like other men ; but 
really I am the Son of God, eternally begotten of 
God: I am the Creator of heaven and earth: I am 
God!" A well-nigh impossible situation, let us say; 
and were we to search the Gospels for such explicit 
declarations, we might rightly suspect their authen- 
ticity, inasmuch as they would be untimely and out of 
place. 

If, as we believe, Jesus was the Incarnate Son of 
God, He could not have well revealed His personality 
to men otherwise than He actually did make it known. 
He wanted to reveal His Messianic dignity indirectly 
and progressively to men : with greater reason He had 
to thus act as regards His divinity. He could not 
have acted with greater wisdom nor more opportunely. 
By His whole life He had suggested and insinuated 
that supernatural reality; His discourses were full of 
allusions to His transcendent privileges and powers, 
to the unique character of His quality as Son of God. 
Although it was not expressed in a dogmatic formula, 
like a definition of faith, the true divinity of His per- 
son was, none the less, easily perceived behind all His 
declarations. It followed as a certain theological con- 
clusion, and His disciples must have found it impos- 
sible, especially after His resurrection, to be mistaken 
about the true meaning of His manifestation. 

The declarations given in the Gospels, moreover, are 
not the utterances of the Son of God as subsisting sim- 
ply in the divine essence ; but as constituted in human 
nature. Not only did Jesus have the lips and speech 
of men, but also a human mind and thoughts. What 
He says of His person, of His dealings with His 
heavenly Father, of His powers, of His destiny, He 
says as man, united truly to the divinity, but directly 
and properly speaking as man, as giving human ex- 



412 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



pression to His human thought. So that it was to be 
expected that he would refer to Himself such as He 
was in His humanity, and not as He existed prior to 
His humanity and independently thereof. The same 
Jesus could undoubtedly testify to His eternal pre- 
existence in the bosom of the Eternal Father as Son of 
God and God; and nevertheless, let us say it again^ 
His human discourse concerning Himself must have 
more naturally viewed Him as the Son of God In- 
carnate in His human nature. 

Was not this the motive that led Jesus to designate 
Himself more habitually as " the Son of Man " ? 
And this also explains the following propositions, at 
first sight so strange, wherein the Saviour seems to 
mark Himself as really distinct from God : " Why 
callest thou Me good? He says to the young ruler, 
" None is good but One, that is God "'. The 
Divine Master, no doubt appeared to the youth 
as simply an ordinary Jewish Rabbi. Seemingly, 
Jesus rejects, as belonging to God alone, a title 
which is given to Him only as though He were merely 
man. Perhaps, however, He did not absolutely re- 
fuse it, and prudently wished to suggest to His ques- 
tioner, or to the assembled disciples, that He to whom 
this title of " good " is applied, and who, as they well 
know, merits it so deservedly, is not only and solely 
man, but God. Indeed, there is naught to show us 
that the Saviour wants to formally reject this title of 
" good " : it would, indeed, be strange and out of keep- 
ing with His usual manner. Had He not said: 
" Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart "? 
His reply, then, to the young man : " Why callest 
thou Me good?" seems rather intended to make him 
reflect upon the unconscious but perfect exactness 
of the title. So too, at another time, the divine Mas- 
ter had asked the Jews : " How do the Scribes say 
that Christ is the Son of David?" And the Saviour's 
later remark may recall. His way of acting in remitting 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 413 

the sins of the paralytic: God alone forgives sins, as 
you say yourselves. As for Me, I also forgive sins 
and I prove my right to do so. And here He says : 
You call Me good? That title is deserved: thou 
thyself hast judged Me by way of comparison with 
other Masters; so that I do not decline the title; but, 
remember, none is good but God alone ! ^ 

Again, speaking of the last advent, Jesus said: " Of 
that day and hour no one knoweth, no, not the angels 
of heaven, but the Father alone ". This very Son 
who is unaware of the time of the final advent, is the 
Son of God, but the Son of God as constituted in His 
humanity and undoubtedly he is unaware of the date 
of that event only and simply as man. The idea, in 
fact, that Jesus wants to bring out is that the hour of 
judgment is as such impenetrable to the human mind, 
and is known only to God alone : no creature, whether 
the most excellent and most perfect, not even the angels 
of heaven, not even the Son of God as regards His 
created human nature, can naturally know that hour: 
properly speaking, it is the secret of God.^ 

And from the Cross we hear that agonizing cry of 
the dying Son of God " My God, my God, why hast 
thou forsaken me?" Surely this is the utterance of 
the Son of God as constituted in His human nature. 
As a human creature. He can appeal to God as " My 
God ", just as He can call Him " My Father ". As 
man. He can be tried and abandoned by His God, as 
long as God, in His wisdom, deems this good, in view 
of the redemptive mission confided to Him.^ 

As man, then, as the Man-God indeed but still as 
created and mortal man, Jesus maintains towards His 
Father the attitude of a suppHant and inferior. So 

1 Mt. xix. 17; Mk. X. 18; Lk. xviii. 19; Mt. xi. 28; Mk. xii. 
35-37; Mt. xxii. 41-46; Lk. XX. 41-44. 

2 Mk. X. 18; Mt. xix. 17; Lk. viii. 19; cf. Lepin, Jesus 
Messie, p. 414; Engl. tr. p. 463. 

3 Mk, XV. 34; Mt. xxvii. 46. 



414 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



also, He marks the difference between a blasphemy ut- 
tered against Himself, the Son of Man, and one against 
the Holy Ghost who operates in Him; thus He de- 
clares He fulfills His exorcisms by the power of the 
Holy Spirit of God ; thus He attributes His miraculous 
cures to God. It is also, in a certain sense, in His 
humanity that He apparently enjoys more than all 
others the filial relations which He claims to have with 
His heavenly Father, and the Messianic powers which 
He holds as a gift of His Father's liberality.^ 

We may note, too, the significant turn which the 
Evangelists give to Jesus' words : " Go into thy house 
to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord 
hath done for thee, and hath had mercy on thee. 
And he went his way, and began to publish in Deca- 
polis how great things Jesus had done for him "... 
The text of verse 39 in S. Luke even has " how 
great things God hath done for thee." Thus, between 
Jesus and God, there is established a remarkable iden- 
tity like that noticeable in the accounts of Our Lord's 
Infancy.^ 

If, moreover, the Saviour " could not do any 
miracles " at Nazareth, it was only " because of their 
unbelief ", inasmuch as faith from them was demanded 
as a condition for Him to exert His power as a won- 
der-worker. So too, if, in order to cure the deaf-mute 
of Decapolis, Jesus wanted to make use of His saliva 
and to touch him with His fingers; if He restored 
sight to the bhnd man of Bethsaida only by degrees 
and progressively; there is, in this circumstance, a 
particular design which does not at all imply that His 
power was defective. He who restored to life the son 
of the widow of Naim and the daughter of Jairus; 
who on two occasions so profusely multiplied the 
loaves of bread; who by an act of His will healed, 

1 Cf. Lepin, op. cit., pp. 222, 291 ; Mt. xii. 32 ; cf. Mk. iii. 29. 

2 Mk. V. 19-20; Lk. viii. 39; cf. Lepin, op. cit., p. 73; 
Engl. tr. p. 125 sq. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 415 

even at a distance, the Centurion's servant, the daugh- 
ter of the Canaanite woman, and the ten lepers, could 
not feel Himself powerless when confronting a blind 
man or a deaf-mute.^ 

2. A GUARANTEE OF SYNOPTIC HISTORICITY. 

As remarked in our Introduction to this book, the 
prominence given to the humanity of the Son of God 
and the veiling of His divinity throughout the 
Synoptic account, are not the least guaranty of the 
truthfulness of our Evangelists. They wrote at a 
time when the dogma of Christ's pre-existence as God's 
eternal and real Son was, as it is now, firmly held as an 
article of faith. If, therefore, the Synoptists refrained 
from attributing to their divine Master more explicit 
declarations in keeping with the current belief, if they 
did not fear to set forth the Saviour's humanity so 
forcefully and accredit Him with sayings apparently 
at variance with the dogma of His divinity, their pro- 
cedure is a very convincing argument in behalf of their 
sincerity as chroniclers. Historians who are able to 
abstract, to such a degree, from the prevaihng views 
of their time, as also from their particular beliefs, — 
such as S. Luke the Evangelist, who was also S. Paul's 
disciple and who fully understood his master's teach- 
ings,) — in order to write history as it actually hap- 
pened, are evidently men who merit the entire con- 
fidence of the most exacting critic. So that, if one 
accepts as incontestably historic their testimony to 
Christ's real humanity, one has no right to reject, at 
the same time, their testimony to His divinity.^ 

In observing that the Synoptic Gospels were edited 
some years after S. Paul's Epistles, Loisy says that 

1 Mk. vi. 5-6; Mt. xiii. 58; Mk. vii. 33; Mk. viii. 23-25; cf. 
Mk. ix. 24-26; Jo, ix. 6; Mk. viii. 13; Lk. vii. 10; Mk. vii. 29; 
Mt. XV. 28; Lk. xvii. 14. 

2 Cf. Lepin, op. cit., Introd., p. Ixvii ; Engl. tr. p. 52. 



4i6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the Apostle ** affirms the eternal pre-existence of the 
Messiah ", that '' he comes to identify Christ, more 
or less, with Eternal Wisdom, attributing to Him a 
cosmological function " that " this double theory of 
Christ, in His relations to the universe and to human- 
ity, could not fail to enter into the evangelical tradi- 
tion, and did in fact enter ".^ 

Such, indeed, is the logical and necessary inference 
from Loisy's general conception of the mode in which 
the Gospels were compiled. And it is interesting to 
see to what extent this inference is verified. Loisy 
further adds that the cosmological theory which identi- 
fies Christ with Eternal Wisdom, has been actually 
allowed to enter into the Gospel tradition. But how 
far, indeed ? Loisy writes : '' The doctrine of the Re- 
demption appears in Mark ; that of the Eternal Christ, 
Wisdom of the Father, agent of all Divine Works, is 
hinted at by Matthew and Luke, and finds its definite 
statement in the Gospel of John ".^ 

But the critic should say just in what texts this doc- 
trine is hinted at ; we are referred to one text, a single 
text, the famous text which is common to S. Matthew 
and S. Luke : '' Neither doth any one know the Father, 
but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to 
reveal Him ". But as we have seen above, this very 
text is far from supporting Loisy's hypothesis, and, in 
particular, its relation to the idea of '' Wisdom of the 
Father, agent of all the divine works ", can be estab- 
lished only by means of an arbitrary and hazardous 
exegesis. Even in Loisy's view, this isolated and un- 
specific text would be also exceptional. So that he 
feels bound to say with some reserve : " It must be said, 
however, that the Messianic element, dominant in 
Mark, is still the element most in evidence in Matthew 
and in Luke ; the theory of universal salvation, ex- 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 45. 

2 Loisy, op. cit., p. 46. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 417 

pressed in the Synoptics, influences them only to a 
slight degree ; and the theory of the Eternal Christ, 
of Divine Wisdom revealed in Jesus, appears still 
more discreetly ". This, v^e think, is the best con- 
demnation of Loisy's conclusion, and hence of the 
general system that led him thereto, namely, his theory 
of the influence exerted on the Gospel contents by a 
process of elaboration and of idealization of the primi- 
tive impressions, a process that went on in the depths 
of the Christian mind.^ 

Again, with regard to the Synoptist assertion of 
Jesus' divinity, we must say that modern critics who 
claim to be most independent in their views betray a 
manifest Rationalistic party spirit. Thus, Wrede 
thinks that Christ as portrayed in S. Mark, that is in 
the Gospel which is considered as reproducing the best 
primitive Tradition, seems to be endowed with a 
mysterious and supernatural quality and exerting a 
miraculous influence like the Christ described by S. 
John. Wrede, however, infers that S. Mark himself 
loses sight of what is real and historical. Why so? 
Because, forsooth, history cannot admit of super- 
natural facts such as Miracles and Prophecy. In reply 
to Wrede, we might allege the very criticism which he 
had himself passed upon the Rationalistic method, too 
often employed in Germany : " Each author preserves 
the traditional sayings suitable to his view of facts and 
to his view of historic possibility ; the rest is rejected ".^ 

The twofold testimony is, therefore, inseparable. 
What shows that Christ truly shared the divinity is in- 
dissolubly connected with whatever proves His real 
share of humanity, and affords the same guarantees of 
historic truth. Christ's identity, as true God and true 

1 Mt. xi. 27 ; Lk. x. 22 ; cf. Lepin, op. cit., p. 328 ; Loisy, 
op. cit., p. 46. 

2 Wrede, op. cit., p. 86 ; cf. Rev. Bib., 1903, pp. 300, 625 ; 
cf. Lepin, op. cit. Introd., p. Ixvi, n. i ; p. Ixx, n. 3 ; Engl, 
tr. p. 51. 

27 



4i8 Christ and the gospel 

Man, such as His portrait is sketched in the Synop- 
tists, appears from many scattered details, from oc- 
casional features, the main and sole purpose being to 
narrate history. A critical comparison will show that 
all such features are in wonderful agreement and so 
complete one another as to afiford a perspective that is 
consistent and harmonious. Such narratives as these 
are not due to mere invention, whether conscious or 
not: they can be only the authentic reproduction, the 
exact photograph of a sublime, but truly living reality. 
Besides, what confirms this inference is a comparison 
of the three Synoptic Gospels, at once so different 
and yet so closely identical, as also a comparison of 
these with the Fourth Gospel, which in turn is so 
apparently unlike these, but, as we shall see later, so 
fundamentally equivalent. 

Finally, let us not fear to repeat it, these very 
special details that assure the historical character of 
the Synoptic narratives, are at the same time one of 
the most persuasive proofs of the Saviour's sincerity, 
and of the truth of His claims to be the true Son of 
God. The deeper we study the Gospel, the further 
we study the method followed by Jesus in revealing 
and manifesting Himself, the more we are impressed 
with the wisdom of His plan, with His marvelous 
opportunism, with His incomparably prudent and pro- 
gressively suggestive manner in disclosing, under His 
really Hving human nature, His quality of true God 
and true man. There is never the slightest thing to 
dazzle the view, nor a declaration which, so to speak, 
forces faith upon one: all serves to leave the pro- 
found impression of sweet and charming light. To 
quote a remark in the Revue Biblique : *' The decisive 
feature in the comparison between S. Paul and Jesus 
Christ is that, although so great, one is never tempted 
to see in the author of the Epistles anything else than 
a man, while, in reading the Gospel, we cannot resist 
the mysterious charm of something higher ". The In- 



lESUS THE SON OF GOD 419 

carnate Son of God could not have acted more hap- 
pily; on the one hand, veiling his divinity sufficiently, 
in order not to frighten his followers nor crush them, 
as it were, under the weight of His majesty; on the 
other hand, letting it be sufficiently surmised, render- 
ing it sufficiently perceptible, reveahng it slowly and 
progressively, so that the faith in the same divinity 
might enter the souls of His disciples, might therein 
become gradually grounded, and at last, confirmed, per- 
fected, and completed when the hour should arrive for 
the supreme manifestation and the great revelation 
wrought by the Holy Spirit.^ 

VI. The Perfection of Christ's Knowledge. 
I. general survey. 

Before concluding this essay, we must examine the 
hitherto deferred question of the progressive character 
of Christ's human knowledge and, in particular, of 
that consciousness which He had of His Messianic 
role and relationship with God. As we have seen, 
Christ is man. The entire Gospel attests the com- 
pleteness of His human nature. He had a body and 
soul like ours, a soul endowed with the same powers, 
— of intelligence, of sensible perception, and of will. 
His body was submitted to the ordinary conditions of 
physical growth. Thus, seemingly. His soul-forces 
must have been under the law of intellectual and moral 
development. His sensibility is aroused by contact 
with men and things. His will is exerted under the 
influence of events and circumstances. Why should 
not his intelligence have acted in the same active and 
efficacious manner? Why should not self-reflexion, 
and daily experience with life, have constantly in- 
creased His mental perceptions and imparted to His 
human knowledge a veritable and continuous progress ? 

1 Rev. Biblique, 1899, p. 633. 



420 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

The Gospel, in fact, seems to indicate that the 
Saviour enjoyed an intellectual and moral development 
parallel to His physical growth. As we read : '' Jesus 
advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and 
men ". It is thus that many Fathers of the Church 
interpret this text; and, taking it as his basis, S. 
Thomas Aquinas gives the following explanation: 
"Acquired knowledge is due to the activity of the in- 
tellect, which is exercised, not all at once, but suc- 
cessively ; so that, with this knowledge, Christ did not 
know everything at first, but gradually and in due 
time, that is, after reaching His maturity. This is 
plain; for the Evangelist says that He advanced in 
wisdom as in age ".^ 

Christ, however, is not merely man like other men. 
His humanity is closely united to the divinity. His 
human nature is penetrated by God's power, endowed 
with an ineffable influence of the Spirit of God, nay 
more, uniquely united to God's very essence by a 
union that is substantial and personal. What is the 
resultant of that mysterious union? Has not this un- 
usual contact with the divinity imparted to the 
Saviour's body and soul a special reflection of the 
divine glory and a special share in the divine power? 

2. Christ's supernatural and experimental 
knowledge. 

As the Gospel clearly shows, the Sacred body of 
Christ was endowed with a supernatural power. He 
walks serenely upon the waters. He appears re- 
splendently and divinely bright upon the Mount of 
Transfiguration ; moreover, the sick daily crowd about 
Him and are cured by contact with Him. His very 
touch heals every infirmity; His person possesses a 
hidden and mysterious power that makes its influence 
felt by all who approach Him. 

1 Lk. ii. 40, 52 ; Vacant, art. : Agnuctes, V. D., val. i, col. 
590 ; S. Thomas Aquinas, Summa TheoL, pt. iii, art. 2, ad. i m. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



421 



His soul, also, enjoys vast powers and manifests a 
superhuman force. In His will there abides a superior 
power. By a word, by a gesture, by a wish He heals 
maladies; He raises the dead; He commands the ele- 
ments. He seems to have at His disposal the divine 
power itself, the faculty to employ it at will and in a 
sense to participate in God's omnipotence.^ 

The same feature is noticeable in His intelligence. 
Thus He knows hidden and secret things ; He reads 
the deepest thoughts of His followers ; He announces 
the various circumstances of His death and ensuing 
resurrection. Throughout all the incidents that led to 
it, He shows that He certainly knows its exact mo- 
ment and precise details. He tells His apostles that 
He will make them fishers of men ; and, by the symbol 
of the miraculous draught of fishes, enables them to 
foresee the marvelous results of their apostolate. He 
foretells the ruin of Capharnaum, the fall of Jeru- 
salem, and gives men to understand that the chastise- 
ment of the Holy City would occur during the present 
generation. He also announces the preaching of the 
Gospel through the whole world, the conversion of 
the Gentiles, and the eternal duration of the Church 
which He founded upon the rock of Peter. Thus 
Christ participates in the divine knowledge as well as 
the divine power : His soul is permeated and illumined 
by a supernal light. - 

We are not to imagine that the Saviour's various 
questions argue an ignorance of the point at issue ; they 
are rather a manner of speaking that conforms to His 
usual method of instruction and teaching. Thus, of 
the possessed man from Gerasa, He asked : " What is 

^Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 269; Engl. tr. p. 307. 

2 Mk. xiv. 13 and par.; xiv. 42; Lk. vii. 39, 47; xvii. 17; 
Mk. ii. 6-8 and par.; viii. 16-17; Mt. xvi. 7-8; Lk. vii. 39-40; 
xi. 38-39; cf. Lepin, op. cit., p. 194; Mk. xiii. 10; cf. Mt. xxiv. 
14; Mk. xiv. 9; cf. Mt. xxvi. 13: cf. Lepin, op. cit., p= 387; 
Engl. tr. p. 436. 



422 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

thy name ?" Of the infirm woman : '' Who hath 
touched me?" — "Who hath touched my garment?" 
Of the lunatic : " How often hath this happened to 
thee?" Of His disciples at the miracles of the loaves : 
" How many have you ?" And at Capharnaum, after 
asking His disciples : " What did you treat of in the 
way ?" as they dare not admit that they had been dis- 
cussing the topic of precedence in the kingdom of 
heaven, He replies directly to their hidden preoccu- 
pations by telling that whoever wishes to be first should 
take the lowest place and become the servant of all/ 

Jesus' human intelligence therefore, was apparently 
endowed with two kinds of knowledge: the one in- 
ferior and experimental, acquired by the exercise of 
His natural powers, conditioned by the time and place 
in which He happened to live, and, like that of other 
men, under the law of successive improvement: the 
other, superior and supernatural, independent of bodily 
organs, of environment and personal experience, and 
immediately derived from the divine light illuminat- 
ing His spirit. 

3. THE PERFECTION OF JESUS' SUPERNATURAL 
KNOWLEDGE. 

To what extent, it may be asked, was this super- 
natural knowledge imparted to Jesus ? It could hardly 
have been an infinite perfection ; for the infinite is the 
privilege of God alone. If, in His divine nature, 
Christ's knowledge is divine absolutely speaking, in 
His human nature, it could be but finite and limited. 
Theologians, however, admit that in virtue of the 
Hypostatic Union, His supernatural knowledge was 
most extensive and supremely perfect in a degree 
knowable and perceivable by God alone, either be- 

1 Mk. V. 9 ; Lk. viii. 30 ; Mk. v. 30 and par. ; Mk. ix. 20 ; 
Mk. vi. 38; cf. Mk. ix. 15; Lk. xxiv. 18; Mk. ix. 32-35 and 
par.; cf. Jo, iv. 16; vi. 5-6. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 423 

cause from the moment of His Incarnation, His in- 
telligence enjoyed the immediate and constant in- 
tuition of all things in the divine essence, or because 
it beheld successively and at will the same objects 
through the medium of a specially divine light directly 
issuing from the divine being/ 

" Jesus Christ and His disciples " says Harnack, 
" lived in their day just as we live in ours ; that is to 
say, their feelings, their thoughts, their judgments and 
their efforts were bounded by the horizon and the 
surroundings in which their own nation was set and 
by its condition at the time. Had it been otherwise, 
they would not have been men of flesh and blood, but 
spectral beings. ... To be a man means, in the first 
place, to possess a certain mental and spiritual dis- 
position, determined in such and such a way, and 
thereby limited and circumscribed; and, in the second 
place, it means to be situated, with this disposition, 
in an historical environment which in its turn is also 
limited and circumscribed. Outside of this there are 
no such things as ' men '. It at once follows that a 
man can think, speak, and do absolutely nothing at 
all in which his peculiar disposition and his own age 
are not co-efficients." ^ 

Similarly, it is because he forgets what can and 
should produce the substantial union of Christ's hu- 
manity with His divinity, and because he seems to 
suppose as fully sustained the hypothesis that Christ's 
knowledge was infinite in character, that Loisy thus 
inveighs against theologians : " They represent the 
Saviour as dissimulating His infinite knowledge and 
leaving His followers in their ignorance. But, be- 
fore affirming this without proof, would it not be 
better to verify the soundness of the theory, and to 
consider whether a human brain is capable of the 

^Vacant, op. cit, V. D., col. 593, 

2 Harnack, What is Christianity f p. 13. 



424 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

knowledge ascribed to Jesus ; whether it is possible 
in an earthly being; whether it is compatible with the 
conditions of present existence, of moral life, of hu- 
man merit? . . . When theologians say that Christ's 
person, in virtue of His divine knowledge, had al- 
ways known what His human knowledge could pos- 
sibly ignore, so that, at least, in the higher part of 
His being, Jesus could not be ignorant of anything at 
all, — I fear that true philosophers realize that they 
are confronted by a mechanical and artificial arrange- 
ment, not by a rational conception of the matter, and 
that the sublimity of the theory does not seem to 
them to be free from weakness ".^ 

But, whatever Loisy may say, the theological teach- 
ing that ascribes to Christ's humanity both an acquired 
and a higher knowledge beyond the capabilities of 
human nature, is not a " mechanical and artificial " ar- 
rangement but rather a " rational and logical " one. 
Its basis lies in the data of integral and unbiased 
criticism which presents in the historical Christ " a 
quite special relation of union " with God, a " sub- 
stantial communication with the divine Spirit, that is, 
God Himself ", — such are Loisy's terms, — and on the 
other hand, manifold signs of a supernatural knowl- 
edge.^ 

Loisy, it is true, asserts that " all went on, during 
the Saviour's career, as if this extraordinary knowl- 
edge did not exist ". But to reach this conclusion, 
we must eliminate, on set purpose, the whole assem- 
blage of Gospel facts that prove the contrary, and, 
this having been done, there would still remain, in 
Jesus' entire Gospel personality, what Loisy calls 
" something divine that raises Him above common hu- 
manity, even the best ".^ 

1 Loisy, Autour d'un petit livre, pp. 139, 140. 

2 Cf. Lepin, op. cit., pp. 246-247. 

3 Loisy, Autour, p. 140; cf. Lepin, op. cit., p. 375; Loisy, 
Le Quat. Ev., p. 38.. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



425 



4. THE END OF THE WORLD. 

It seems that these theological conclusions do not 
meet with the opposition of critics. The Gospel tes- 
timony, in fact, argues in the Saviour some partici- 
pation in God's omniscience, in this sense that human 
intelligence seemed susceptible of receiving indefi- 
nitely, as it were, the communication of divine knowl- 
edge; just as, in a way, divine omnipotence is at the 
disposal of His will. In this respect we truly find a 
positive basis for the current conclusions of theology; 
while, on the other hand, it does not seem that the 
critical data are formally opposed to them. 

Some critics, indeed, object that the Saviour did 
not know the time of His final advent, and also that 
He was really mistaken about the exact moment of 
its occurrence. We are told that He believed the 
world would end during the course of His own genera- 
tion; that He did not foresee the existence of that 
Church which, for centuries, was to be the preparation 
for the Kingdom of heaven. Such is the view of the 
extreme Rationalists like Renan, and is adopted by 
such Liberal Protestants as Vernes, Stapfer, Schwartz- 
kopf, H. J. and O. Holtzmann, as also by Loisy.^ 

But, a priori, nothing is more unlikely than such a 
hypothesis. If Jesus is truly the Messiah and Founder 
of the new kingdom, of the final religion, the supreme 
mediator between God and man, united substan- 
tially to God, is it probable that He should have been 
formally wrong on a point of such vital importance 
and of such influence upon His mission? Is it likely 
that He was mistaken about the very character of His 
work, that the Church which considers Him as its 



1 Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 284, 288 ; Vernes, Hist, des 
Idees Mess., p. 192;, Stapfer, The Death and Res. of Jesus 
Christ, p. 48; Schwartzhopff, Die Weissagungen Jesu Christi, 
1895 ; Holtzmann, H., Lehrh. der N. T. TheoL, 1897, vol. i, p. 
312; Holtzmann, O., Life of Jesus, p. 358, Ger. ed., Loisy, 
The Gospel and the Church, pp. 2, 53, 123; Autour, p. 141. 



426 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

founder and head could have been estabUshed without 
His intervention and foresight? This, indeed, seems 
impossible to grant. His very position as head of the 
future Kingdom can hardly be reconciled with a posi- 
tive error about the epoch at which He was to inau- 
gurate His triumphal royalty. His very position as 
chief of the Christian Church compels us to think that 
He has not altogether overlooked the future destiny 
of the Christian movement: a fortiori, His substan- 
tial and personal union with the divinity prevents 
us from supposing that His human soul was the vic- 
tim of an error of such character and importance. It 
is a question of fitness and dignity, but, it seems in- 
deed, of essential dignity and of necessary fitness. It 
must be said that this a priori consideration is singu- 
larly confirmed by the proofs which we have given, 
to the effect that, on a number of less important points, 
the Saviour possessed a superhuman knowledge which 
prejudice alone could refuse to recognize in Him. 

5. PROPHECY OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 

If we now submit to a critical examination the texts 
wherein, it is alleged, Christ affirms the near approach 
of His last advent, we can assure ourselves that they 
demand a quite different interpretation. What is very 
apparent at first sight in the sayings and discourses 
on the last things, is that the Saviour announces, as 
about to happen, a final catastrophe which would de- 
stroy His own nation. He frequently reproves the 
perverse generation, which, turning a deaf ear to His 
teachings, is going to put Him and His disciples to 
death, just as they have killed the prophets and holy 
ones of ancient Israel. To the guilty generation of 
His time He foretells a terrible chastisement, the spe- 
cial feature of which is the ruin of the Holy City. As 
Jonas had been sent to Nineveh to preach penance 
under threat of the destruction of the city after forty 
days : so Christ also is come on a mission of pardon ; 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



427 



but He gives the people to understand that, if Israel 
remains deaf to His voice, the fate with which Nine- 
veh was threatened shall befall its capital city. Jeru- 
salem shall be laid waste ; its homes desolated and de- 
stroyed; its children killed, because it has rejected its 
Saviour and unheeded the time of mercy. Yea, upon 
the present generation shall the scourge of God fall; 
it is upon that ungrateful generation which rejected 
Christ and persecuted His disciples that shall fall the 
chastisement of Israel for its bygone crimes.^ 

Such was Jesus' prediction. In its general tenor, 
its authenticity is undeniable; and to claim that it is 
based upon the catastrophe of 70 A. D., which is 
plainly its realization, is erroneous. Nor is the pro- 
phecy recorded in some isolated text, but in many 
passages that describe the Saviour's public ministry, 
and in a context which suggests the idea that the words 
were taken down just as they were uttered and noted 
as circumstances arose. The declarations are found 
notably in SS. Matthew and Luke; and a comparison 
of these two Synoptic accounts shows that these par- 
ticular narratives are independent, and both derived 
from the early collections of Sayings, or Logia. 

The three Synoptic Gospels mention in connec- 
tion with the principal one of these declarations, a 
feature so characteristic as to be beyond suspicion: 
Jesus leaves the Temple, where he has just com- 
mended the poor widow who had dropped two small 
coins into the box standing at the vestibule of the 
Temple. He goes on His way, followed by His dis- 

1 The word eschatological — relating to the end, from the 
Greek eaxarog, last ; Mt. viii. 12 ; Mt. xii. 39, 42, 45 ; Mt. xvi. 
4; Lk. xi. 29, 31, 32; Mk. viii. 28; Mk. ix. 18; Mt. xvii. 16; 
Lk. ix. 41; Mt. xi. 16; Lk. vii. 31; xvii. 25; Mt. xii. 39-45; 
Mt. xvi. 4; Lk. xi. 29-32; Mk. xiii. 2, 3; Mt. xxiv. 2, 34; 
Lk. xxi. 6, 32; Mt. xxiii. 33-39; Lk. xi. 50-51; Mk. xii. 9; Mt. 
xxi. 41; Lk. XX. 16; Mt. xxii. 7; Lk. xiii. 34-35; xix. 41-44; 
xxiii. 28-31. 



428 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ciples and passes through the gate leading to the 
Mount of OUves. " Master," one of the disciples ex- 
claims, " behold what manner of stones, and what 
. buildings are here !" And He replies : " Seest thou 
all these great buildings? There shall not be left a 
stone upon a stone, that shall not be thrown down ". 
And whilst standing upon the Mount and facing 
towards the Temple, He gives them to understand that 
what He has just foretold shall happen before the end 
of that generation.^ 

The reality of the predictions of the Saviour is 
also confirmed by the unquestionable apprehensions of 
members of the early Church, which are so strikingly 
attested in S. Paul's Epistles written long before the 
Judaeo-Roman war. The general expectancy of an 
approaching catastrophe and of a great upheaval, 
wherein was perceived the near inauguration of the 
Kingdom of God, necessarily supposes that Jesus' de- 
clarations were analogous to those given in the Synop- 
tic accounts. The very charge brought against S. 
Stephen — a charge whose historical value is well guar- 
anteed, since the episode in which he figures and the 
terms in which it is expressed are so characteristic — 
certainly seems to refer to authentic statements 
whereby Christ had announced a real destruction of 
the Temple, leading to a complete revolution in re- 
ligious worship and traditions. 

Thus we read : " We have heard Him say, that this 
Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall 
change the traditions which Moses delivered unto us." 
The terms of this charge would appear to suppose 
something besides the mere word uttered by Jesus 
when expelling the sellers from the Temple, and re- 
called by the false witnesses in presence of the San- 
hedrin.^' 

1 Mk. xiii. I ; Mt. xxiv. i ; Lk. xxi. 5. 

2 Ac. vi. 14; Jo. ii. 19; Mk. xiv. 58; Mt. xxvi. 61; Weiss, 
B., Life of Jesus, vol. ii, p. 439, Ger. ed. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 429 

Even the most independent critics, indeed, recog- 
nize in a general way the authenticity of the predic- 
tions made by Jesus concerning the Palestinian dis- 
aster. It is admitted not only by such scholars as B. 
Weiss, Wendt, O. Holtzmann, but also by Vernes, 
Stapfer, Wernle, Wellhausen, Schmiedel, and Renan. 
In his turn Loisy agrees that " the prophecies in the 
Synoptics concerning the ruin of Jerusalem and of the 
Temple may have their starting-point in the teaching 
of the Saviour ".^ 

B. Weiss remark with reference to the saying 
*' There shall not be left a stone upon a stone " : *' All 
doubts about the authenticity of this prophetic utter- 
ance must be put aside. . . . Although S. Mark wrote 
after the Fall of Jerusalem, nevertheless the prophecy 
which he relates is in no way the mere recording of a 
past event ; for the Temple was really destroyed by the 
fire and not by the hand of man.'' ■ 

" Jesus was certain," says Wendt, " that His own 
generation would witness the great chastisement. . . . 
In truth He announced a divine judgment against 
Jerusalem." ^ 

O. Holtzmann also affirms the authenticity of the 
declarations made by Christ with reference to the 
punishment of His own generation, and of the text of 
S. Mark xiii. 2, and parallel passages.* 

Vernes writes: ''One of these elements (of the 
Discourses on the Last Things) emanates from Jesus. 
It contains a prediction of the ruin of Jerusalem and 
of the trials to which the disciples will be submitted 
before the advent of the Kingdom of God." ° 

Stapfer admits the authentic character of the pro- 

1 Loisy, Le Quatr. Evang., p. 296. 

2 Weiss, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 422, 437, 439, Ger. ed. 

3 Wendt, The Teaching of Jesus, p. 594, Ger. ed. 
* Holtzmann. O., Life of Jesus, p. 145. 

5 Vernes, op. cit., p. 237. 



430 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

phecies about the destruction of the Temple and the 
fall of Jerusalem. Referring to the discourse in ques- 
tion, he says : " Its authenticity, as a whole, appears 
to me beyond dispute. Who, indeed, could have in- 
vented Mark's account ? " ^ 

Wernle says : " It is true that the destruction of the 
Temple of Jerusalem confirms the prophetic utter- 
ance of Jesus." 2 

Wellhausen grants that Jesus had prophesied the 
ruin of the Temple and that the event itself has jus- 
tified his prophecy.^ 

Schmiedel thinks that " Jesus could have foreseen 
the destruction of Jerusalem." But we do not see 
how this critic can add " even without supernatural 
knowledge ".* 

** One day," says Renan, " some of His disciples, 
who were better acquainted with Jerusalem than He, 
wished to draw His attention on the beauty of the 
Temple's buildings, the admirable choice of ma- 
terials, and the wealth of votive offerings that cov- 
ered the walls. ' You see all these buildings,' said 
He ; ' but I tell you there shall not be left one stone 
upon another ! ' . . . A profound feeling of sadness 
marred for Jesus the beauty of the spectacle that 
filled all other Israelites with joy and pride: ' O Jeru- 
salem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and 
stonest those who are sent to thee !'...! tell you 
that all this blood will be required of this generation ! ' 
. . . The terrible dogma of the substitution of the 
Gentiles — the idea that the Kingdom of God was to be 
transferred to others, because those for whom it was 

1 Stapfer, The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
PP- 53-54, 6o, n. i, Fr. ed. 

2 Wernle, The Beginnings of Christianity, p. 370, Ger. ed. 

3 Wellhausen, Das Evang. Marci, 1903. 

* Schmiedel, art. : Gospels, E. B., par. 145, col. 1888. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 431 

destined would not receive it — recurs as a bloody 
menace against the aristocracy." ^ 

Naught, indeed, is more extraordinary than this 
prediction, naught more remarkable than its fulfilment. 
The humble Galilean goes about announcing a fright- 
ful cataclysm soon to befall His country. It is a dis- 
aster to which nothing can be compared in the history 
of mankind; it is the destruction of the theocratic 
capital as also the towns of the country districts along 
the lake of Genesereth : it is the collapse of this Temple 
wherein the nation's religious life is centered. The 
chastisement is imminent : it shall happen during the 
course of the present generation and apparently 
towards its end, when there shall still be Hving many 
of those who surround the Saviour. And lo, forty 
years later, the Roman armies sacked Palestine, put- 
ting everything to fire and sword, laying waste the 
Holy City, reducing its Temple to a heap of ruins. 
The national and religious life of Israel is no more. 
The sacrifices have ceased forever. Jerusalem no 
longer exists as the city of the great King. Ages shall 
come and go over the tomb of the ancient people of 
God. 

Is there not a marvelous agreement with the Sa- 
viour's prophecy in the unusual grandeur of that revo- 
lution and the precise epoch of its occurrence, and 
should we not see therein the proof of His super- 
human knowledge? Naught in the nation's poUtical 
and social situation could enable Him to foresee 
that approaching catastrophe ; naught, especially, could 
give to Him, concerning the exact moment when it 
would come, the astounding certainty of which He gave 
proof. The alleged familiarity which He enjoyed 
with the ancient apocalyptic writings does not at all 
explain the precise and assured character of His af- 
firmation concerning the epoch and the importance of 

1 Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 330, 333, 341 ; Antichrist, pp. 
259, 292. 



432 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the revolution. Still less can we ascribe it to a happy 
coincidence that the event foretold should occur at the 
very moment announced ; that, in accordance with the 
Saviour's words, it should plainly bear the character 
of a chastisement meted out by a God who rejected 
His people; and that, in harmony with the ensemble 
of His declarations, it should mark the beginning of 
a new religious era in human history. Nineteen cen- 
turies have only served to prove, in an exceptional 
manner, the unusual import and superhuman char- 
acter of this prophecy of Jesus. 

Now, if the Saviour could so clearly foresee and fore- 
tell with so great an assurance an event so unique, so 
far beyond human foresight, is it not very unlikely 
that He was formally mistaken, as some claim, con- 
cerning the final epoch of the world? The reality of 
Christ's supernatural knowledge on the subject of the 
fall of Jerusalem is, to all appearances, logically ir- 
reconcilable with the theory of positive error concern- 
ing the nearness of the last advent. 

The supposition that Jesus was positively mistaken 
on this matter is expressly rejected, not only by all 
Cathohc authors, but also by Protestant critics such as 
Godet, Bovon, and Briggs, as also by the eminent An- 
glicans Swete, Plummer, Stevens, Salmond, Brown, 
and Sanday. It is also noteworthy that various Pro- 
testant authors, while fully admitting that the Saviour 
may hqve believed that He would return during the 
course of His own generation, nevertheless decline to 
charge Him with an error properly speaking, and sup- 
pose only a kind of conditional belief on His part. 
Among such writers are B. Weiss, Wendt, and 
Charles.^ 

1 Mangenot, art. : Fin du Monde, V. D., col. 2272 ; Godet, 
Com. sur L'Ev. de S. Luc, 3rd ed., vol. ii, p. 430; Bovon, 
Theol. du N. T., 2d ed., vol. i, p. 483; Briggs, The Messiah 
of the Gospels, p. 157; Swete, The Gospel According to S. 
Mark, p. 310; Plummer, Com. on the Gospel According to 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 433 

6. THE EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Another fact that tends to confirm the correctness 
of the foregoing conclusion is that Jesus really an- 
nounced, as especially inevitable before His final ad- 
vent, a number of events which would require consid- 
erable time for their fulfilment, and which are unintel- 
ligible if the Saviour thought the world was to end 
after a single generation. 

From all the teachings of Christ, in fact, it follows 
that, in His view, the advent of the final Kingdom 
would be preceded by a time of preparation wherein 
the Gospel, which is not only the announcement of 
the future Kingdom, but a full and practical code of 
moral and religious life, completing and perfecting 
the Old Law, was to penetrate the souls of men, to 
Tegenerate and transform them in view of the Kingdom 
of God. On the other hand, the assembly of souls 
thus permeated with the new life, was to form a true 
society, preluding to the company of the elect who 
shall reign in heaven ; it was to be an anticipation of 
the Kingdom of God, or, rather, it is already that very 
Kingdom', realized in an initial and preparatory phase 
and awaiting that final and perfect stage which shall 
mark its consummation at the end of time. 

Loisy thinks that the Gospel presents the Kingdom 
of God only as destined to be inaugurated at the last 
advent. Even in that supposition, the coming of 
the real Kingdom would be preceded by a period of 
preparation, namely, the period of the Gospel preach- 
ing. He says himself, when speaking of the Kingdom, 
" its root is within ; it lies like a precious seed in the 
soul of each believer ". And referring to the Parable 

S. Luke, 3rd ed., p. 485 ; Stevens, The Teaching of Jesus, 
p. 169; Salmond, art.: Eschatology, H. D., p. 750; Brown, 
art: Parousia, H. D., p. 677; Sanday, art.: Jesus Christ, 
H. D., p. 620; Weiss, B., Life of Jesus, p. 446, Ger. ed. ; 
Biblical Theol. N. T., vol. i, p. 149; Wendt, op. cif., p. 581, 
Ger. ed. ; Charles, art. : Eschatology, E. B., par. 84, col. 1373. 

28 



434 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

of the Seed which grows without the farmer's heeding, 
he says that " in reahty, the comparison bears on the 
Kingdom as being preached to m_en and the Kingdom 
made manifest, the first corresponding to the sowing- 
time, the second to the harvest; between the two Hes 
the time when the seed germinates and the Gospel 
spreads. The parables of the mustard seed and of the 
leaven, which emphasizes the contrast between a small 
beginning and a great final result, refer also to the 
antithesis between the Kingdom started by the evan- 
gelical teaching and the Kingdom developed in its de- 
finitive manifestation." ^ 

It also appears to follow from numerous Gospel 
texts that the Saviour really described the Kingdom as 
being anticipated in an initial phase that was but pre- 
paratory to its completion. Whatever Loisy may 
think, the parables of the seed, of the mustard seed, 
and of the leaven do not simply refer to the Kingdom 
in its preparatory stage : they show it as an already 
existing and concrete reality, in process of formation, 
of improvement, and of extension. With relation to 
the future, it is a preparation ; but, in itself and under 
a particular form, it is already realized. The Saviour's 
parables are fully intelligible only if we suppose that 
He wished to announce the Kingdom as a present real- 
ity, established slowly and gradually, alike in the souls 
of individuals as in the world at large, and which, at 
the end of time shall expand into a glorious revelation 
and a shining transformation. 

Again, it is impossible to give any other satisfactory 
interpretation than this in the case of the following 
texts : " The Kingdom of God is within you " ; " if I, 
by the spirit of God, cast out devils, then is the King- 
dom of God come upon you " ; " Woe to you. Scribes 
and Pharisees, hypocrites ; because you shut the King- 

1 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, pp. 57, ^2, 67 ; Vernes, 
op. cit., p. 198. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 435 

dom of heaven against men : for you yourselves do not 
enter in; and those that are going in, you suffer not 
to enter " ; " And from the days of John the Baptist 
until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, 
and the violent bear it away ".^ 

The same opinion is held by numerous critics, such 
as Sanday, Stevens, Bovon, B. Weiss, Wendt, O. 
Holtzmann, and Harnack. Wernle, also, while claim- 
ing that Jesus' view-point was strictly eschatological, 
recognizes that this view-point, both in S. Mark and 
in S. Matthew, is not exclusive of the presence of the 
Kingdom in an initial stage, and that we must trace to 
the Saviour the germ of the idea, found in S. Paul 
and in the Apocalypse, of the Kingdom of God as real- 
ized in the Church.^ 

Remarkable, indeed, it is that the Saviour should 
emphasize the idea that the Christian life would grow 
slowly in the hearts of the faithful, that the Gospel 
preaching would spread gradually in the world, like 
the grain of wheat which, after being put into the 
ground, takes root invisibly and grows silently. So, 
too, the mustard-seed becomes a large tree where the 
birds of the air gather together; and the lump of 
leaven transforms the whole mass ; and the field sown 
by the sower is at length covered with wheat, which, 
along with the tares, keeps growing until the harvest : 
thus the Church of the Gospel, or the Kingdom of God 
in its primal phase, was to grow slowly and gradually 
expand until its supreme completion should come.^ 

1 Lk. xvii. 21; Mt. xii. 28; Mt. xxiii. 13; Mt. xi. 12. 

2 Sanday, op. cit., p. 620; Stevens, The Teaching of Jesus, 
p. 165 ; Bovon, op. cit., 2d ed., p. 400 ; Weiss, B., Bibl. TheoL 
N. T., vol. i, par. 14, p. 68; Wendt, op. cit., p. 249, Ger. ed., 
Holtzmann, O., op. cit., pp. 196, 199, 334, Ger. ed. ; Harnack, 
What is Christianity F p. 42; Wernle, Die Reichgoitteshoffnung, 
1903 ; Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 132, 165 ; Rose, Studies on the 
Gospels, p. 106 ; Lagrange, art. : Rcz. Bibl.. 1903, p. 307 ; 
Bat'ifol. art.: Bullet, de Litt. EccL, 1904, p. 38. 

3 Mk. iv. 3, 20; Mt. xiii. 3; Lk. viii. 5; Mk. iv. 30; Mt. xiii. 
31; Lk. xiii. 18; Mt. xiii. 24, 27. 



436 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Bruce alludes to " the parables which represent the 
Kingdom as under the law of growth " and '' seem to 
imply a Christian era indefinitely prolonged " and he 
adds : " although some of these Logia pertain to a 
later period and one less guaranteed by tradition, there 
is no reason to doubt about their authenticity ",^ 

The work of preaching the Gospel, moreover, ac- 
cording to Jesus' intention, was to be carried beyond 
the frontiers of Palestine, the Christian life commu- 
nicated to the Gentiles, and the New Society extended 
throughout the whole world. After His resurrection 
He said to His apostles : *' Go . . . preach the Gospel 
to every creature ". This declaration is found in the 
three Synoptic accounts which, when compared, prove 
to be mutually independent and confirmatory. Nor, 
again, is the triple passage isolated; for, in two in- 
stances, SS. Matthew and Mark attribute this an- 
nouncement to Jesus, namely, on the occasion of the 
great discourse concerning the ruin of the Temple, 
and of the repast at Bethany. The meaning of the 
Saviour's saying is also found in His own interpreta- 
tion of the Parable of the Seed : " The field " sown 
by the Son of Man " is the world ". Many critics 
consider that S. Mark xvi. 9-20 is an addition to the 
primitive work, and written very early, if not imme- 
diately, after the main portion. Such is the view of 
Salmond and Swete. But we think that even in that 
case, the text mentioned may still reproduce an au- 
thentic primitive tradition. ^ 

Similarly, the various texts wherein Christ an- 
nounces the repudiation of the Jewish people and the 
call of the Gentiles serve to confirm the Gospel testi- 

1 Bruce, art. : Jesus, E. B., par. 2,2, col. 2454. 

2 Mk. xvi. 5 ; Mt. xxviii, 19 ; Lk. xxiv. 47 ; cf. Ac. i. 8 ; 
Salmond, art.: Mark, Gospel of, H. D., p. 252; Swete, Gospel 
ace. to St. Mark, p. cxiii; cf. Mt. xvi. 15 and Col. i. 6, 23; 
Mk. xiv. 19; Mt. xxvi. 13; Mk. xiii. 10; Mt. xxiv. 14; cf. 
Lk. xxi. 24; Mk. xiii. 38; cf. Mt. v. 13 and 14. 



lESUS THE SON OF GOD 



437 



mony. Thus, there is the Parable of the Wicked Hus- 
bandmen as recorded by the three Synoptists; the 
Parable of the Feast in SS. Matthew and Luke; the 
text given by S. Matthew, as a saying of Jesus, in 
recognition of the Centurion's faith and also presented 
by S. Luke in another context : " I say to you that 
many shall come from the east and the west, and shall 
sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the 
Kingdom of heaven ; But the children of the Kingdom 
shall be cast out into the exterior darkness ".^ 

Even Jesus' declaration : " I was not sent but to the 
sheep that are lost of the house of Israel ", and His 
command to the twelve : " Go ye not into the way of 
the Gentiles, and into the city of the Samaritans enter 
ye not. But go ye rather to the lost sheep of the house 
of Israel ", are fully understood only if we perceive 
in them a secret allusion to a less restricted mission 
which the Master reserves it as His right to confide 
later to His apostles, and which He will manifest to 
them, at the destined time, by new and final directions.^ 

How, in presence of all these testimonies, is it pos- 
sible to maintain, as it has been by Harnack and Holtz- 
mann, that Christ never thought of attempting the re- 
ligious conquest of the world, and that we must at- 
tribute to the initiative of the disciples, impelled by 
circumstances, the fact that they ceased preaching to 
the Jews and began evangelizing the Gentiles? The 
mind of Jesus contemplates a universal expansion, and 
this very feature pervades the entire synoptic docu- 
ments, and its impress is therein so deep that it is im- 
possible for a wise and reasonable critic to efface it.^ 

1 Mk. xii. 9; Mt. xxi. 42; Lk. xx. 16; Mt. xxii. i et seq.; 
Lk. xiv. 16 et seq.; Mt. viii. 11; Lk. xiii. 29. 

2 Mt. XV. 24; Mk. vii. 27; Mt. x. 5; Wendt, op. cif., p. 584, 
Ger. ed. 

^Harnack, Die Miss, and Ausbreit. des Christutum, p. 25; 
Holtzmann, O., op. cit., p. 159; Wendt, op. cit., p. 583; Stevens. 
Theol, N. T., p. 147; Rose, Studies on the Gospels, p. 117; 



438 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Nor, indeed, in the history of the early Church is 
there any ground for asserting that the universal ex- 
pansion of the new religion was wholly independent 
of its Founder's wish. Although the Apostles may 
have been slow to carry out their Master's desire, 
although they preached first to the Jews, and went to 
the Gentiles only after their relative failure with their 
own countrymen, compelled, as it were, by the events 
narrated in the Book of Acts, such as S. Peter's vision 
at Joppa and the unusual manifestation made by 
the Holy Ghost in behalf of the pagans — nevertheless, 
in all this there is naught against the authenticity of 
the Gospel testimony.^ 

The Saviour's utterance about the evangelization of 
the Gentiles was rather a prediction and a direction 
bearing upon the future activity of the Apostles than 
a really urgent and immediate command. Notice that 
the account in S. Luke and in the Acts conveys the 
idea of a merely prophetic future ; whilst the impera- 
tive mood is found only in S. Matthew and S. Mark, 
and thus likely denotes an exhortatory and directive 
future, as would be in accordance with the very genius 
of the Semitic languages.^ 

Christ, in fact, had told His disciples to begin their 
preaching in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. From 
this field they were to go forth unto the ends of the 
world when favorable circumstances and providential 
indications would enable them to realize their Master's 
commission, and to overcome forever their hesitancy 
about imparting the new faith to the Gentiles. Such 
were the Apostles' native prejudices, such were their 
natural tendencies to national exclusiveness, that they 
would have never thought of a universal preaching 

Grandmaison, art. : L'Expan. du Christianisme, Etudes, 1903, 
vol. xcvi, pp. 300, 459 et seq.; Battifol, art.: Bullet, de Lift. 
EccL, 1904, p. 54. 

1 Ac. X. 9 et seq., 44 et seq. 

2Lk. xxiv. 47; Ac. i. 8; cf. Mt. xxviii. 19; Mk. xvi. 15. 



lESUS THE SON OF GOD 



439 



of the Gospel if they had not been somewhat con- 
strained by the Saviour's will. One entering the vine- 
yard at the " eleventh hour ", like S. Paul, could never 
have compelled Christ's immediate apostles to adopt 
on this matter a program that was not conformable 
to the authentic ideas of the Master. 

The mere fact, then, that Jesus had planned a slow 
and progressive development of Christian life in the 
hearts of men and in the world at large seems hardly 
in agreement with the idea that the period assigned 
to such diffusion was to end after one generation. 
Such agreement is manifestly impossible if it be cer- 
tain that Christ intended a true religious conquest 
that would extend to all the nations of the world. 

True it is, as known to the ancients, the world was 
far from being as extensive as we know it to be. But 
leaving aside the fact that Christ speaks, in an abso- 
lute sense, of all peoples and all creatures, was not this 
ancient world still too vast to be, in His estimation, 
evangehzed within the space of one generation? In 
fact, to the north and west of Palestine, there extended 
all that vast Empire which encircled the Mediterra- 
nean: Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Gaul, Spain, Egypt. 
There extended toward the south and the east the 
great territories of Arabia, Ethiopia, Abyssinia, and 
Babylon. If less than thirty years were going to suf- 
fice for the spread of the Gospel over the principal 
parts of these countries, what else was this but the 
first and partial growth of the divine seed, the primal 
working of the mysterious leaven amidst the mass of 
human nature? How much more time would it not 
take, before the world could witness the advent, from 
the four parts of the earth, of that multitude of souls 
who, as the Master had said, were to sit at table in 
the Kingdom; or, again, as the Apostle expressed it, 
before " the fulness of the nations could be seen en- 
tering into the Church " ? Had not Christ foretold 
that the Gospel would be widely spread oyer the earth, 



440 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

as also fully operative within the souls of men ? And 
were not these prophetic ideals a long way off — the 
world-spreading harvest, the mighty tree wherein the 
birds of the air would find shelter, and the measures 
of meal fully fermented by the leaven ? ^ 

S. Paul, it is true, applies to the preachers of the 
Gospel the text of Psalm xviii. 5, as we see from his 
Epistle to the Romans. Again, in Colossians, he men- 
tions the Gospel as being " announced in the whole 
world . . . preached to every creature under heaven." 
But it is visible that the Apostle wants chiefly to em- 
phasize the fact that the Gospel was, in principle, in- 
tended for all men, and that it had already begun to 
make its way into every land. His words were an 
echo of the Gospel, an allusion to Christ's teaching, 
and an early evidence of its accomplishment.^ 

Let us, therefore, accept the expansion of Chris- 
tianity as an historical fact. In the conquering march 
of the Gospel throughout the world, is there not, from 
first to last, a striking correspondence with Christ's 
predictions viewed in their full bearing and in their 
proper and natural sense? Must we not see, in the 
astonishing agreement between Christ's declarations 
and the actually accomplished fact, a proof of His 
having really intended a diffusion of the Gospel, more 
complete, more general, than could be actually wrought 
during one generation ? It would be useless to ascribe 
to a later tradition those Gospel features which are 
the more significant from the view-point of universal 
expansion ; for, at the very period of the formation of 
the Gosp.els, people could hardly foresee the marvelous 
fact which would be fulfilled ages afterwards. There 
can be no warrant for rejecting Christ's declarations. 
It follows, too, that His idea has its true interpretation 
in history, and that, therefore, He could not assign to 

1 Rom. xi. 25. 

2 Rom. X. 18; Col. i. 6, 23. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 441 

the end of His own generation the completion of the 
preparatory stage of the Kingdom. 

R. H. Charles finds in the Gospel facts a proof that 
'' the Kingdom developed outwardly and also from 
within ; outwardly, until its final expansion was to be 
out of all proportion with its slight beginning; in- 
wardly, until it would transform and regenerate the 
national life, nay, the world itself. . . . The Gospel 
was to be preached even to the non-Israelites. Years 
hence, the Kingdom shall be taken from the Jews and 
given over to others who shall make it prosper. . . . 
The thought of the future plainly implies a prolonged 
period of time. Like the approaching Advent, it is 
traced back to Jesus ".^ 

7. DELAY OF THE FINAL ADVENT. 

From the texts wherein Jesus gives prominence to 
the slow, progressive character of the Gospel's dif- 
fusion, we may direct our attention to those in which 
He insists upon the prolonged delay of the last advent. 
To the multitudes who looked for an immediate mani- 
festation of the Kingdom. He addresses the Parable 
of the Prince who returned with the royal investiture 
only after having sought it in a distant land. The 
Master mentioned in the Parable of the Talents leaves 
His servants and undertakes a long voyage and will 
not return for the reckoning until after a long 
period. In the Parable of the Ten Virgins, also, the 
Spouse is late in coming, and arrives only at midnight 
when the virgins, weary of watching, have fallen 
asleep. Thus, too, the Master who entrusts the care 
of His house to his overseer, prolongs his absence and 
returns only when he is not expected any more.^ 

" The two points continually emphasized," says 

1 Charles, Eschatology, E. B., par. 84, col. 1374. 
2Lk. xix. 12; Mt. xxiv. 14, 19; Mt. xxv. 5, 6; Mt. xxiv. 
48, 50; Lk, xii. 36-40, 45; xviii. 8, 



442 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Brown, " are the necessity of watchfulness, since the 
hour of the Parousia is uncertain, and the necessity 
of faithfulness, since, though the Lord seems to de- 
lay, He will surely come and reward His servants ac- 
cording to their works. It thus appears that the Syn- 
optics represent Jesus as predicting His own return 
now within His own generation, now after an indefi- 
nite future." ^ 

To attribute all the above characteristics to tradition 
would be too arbitrary : they are presented in such wise 
that an impartial critic cannot think of thus acting. 
If, then, the length of time is not specified which 
should precede the advent of the Kingdom ; if there is 
no positive indication that Christ's advent was to be 
delayed beyond one generation. His insistance in 
speaking of unforeseen lateness, of prolonged delay, 
fits in well with the reality of history and warrants us 
in believing that He had foreseen what actually hap- 
pened. It seems that the Gospel expressions quite 
naturally call for the comment found in S. Peter's 
Second Epistle : " One day, with the Lord, is as a thou- 
sand years, and a thousand years as one day ".^ 

In two other Parables, also, Christ suggests that 
it is after the complete rejection and final chastise- 
ment of the Jewish people that there shall be truly 
realized the accession of the Gentiles to the Gospel 
and to the Kingdom announced during His ministry. 
In the Parable of the Wedding Feast, those who were 
the first to be invited and refused to come, behold 
their city burned by the armies of the King, and are 
themselves exterminated. The allusion is plainly to 
the ruin of Jerusalem — a fate which was to be the 
Jews' punishment because of their hardness of heart. 
Now, the invitation extended to the chance guests 
seems to follow upon the chastisement of those who 

^ Brown, art. : Parousia, H. D., p. 6yy, 
2 2 Pet. iii. a 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 443 

were first invited. Is this not an indication that the 
general accession of the Gentiles would happen after 
the great catastrophe that was to signalize the final 
repudiation of the ancient people of God/ 

The Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen as given 
in the Synoptists is in a like strain. The vine repre- 
sents the condition of the Kingdom in its preparatory 
period — the Old Law and the Gospel — of which the 
Husbandmen would have to give the fruit in due 
time. Because the Jews had killed the Prophets and 
rejected the Son of God, they were to be chastized: 
the vine shall be taken away and given to another and 
more faithful people. It seems also to be insinuated 
here that between the chastisement of the Jews by 
the great Palestinian disaster and the reckoning which 
shall be made at the final advent of the Kingdom, 
there shall be a long interval during which many 
Gentiles shall come from the four parts of the earth 
in order to replace the Jews in the bosom of the Chris- 
tian Church and to make the Gospel of Christ flourish 
throughout the world.- 

All these features, when compared, specify, explain, 
and complete one another. Taken in their entirety, 
they cannot be done away wnth. The most character- 
istic indications are presented in a manner so natural 
and so accordant with the rest that they are quite in- 
separable therefrom. It would indeed be a strange 
proceeding to remove from documents whatever sig- 
nificant data they contain, and then, after such an 
a priori curtailment to solemnly declare that one can- 
not find in them what has been carefully eliminated. 

8. TEXTS IXDICATIXG THE EPOCH OF THE SECOND 
ADVENT. 

It is in the light of these preliminary remarks, there- 

^ Mt. xxii. 7, 8 et seq. 

2 Mk. xii. 9 ; Mt. xxi. 43 ; Lk. xx. 16. 



444 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



fore, that we have the right and the duty to examine 
the texts wherein Jesus apparently indicates the epoch 
of His second advent. In His famous discourse on 
the last things, He declares the signs that will herald 
the Palestinian catastrophe and the coming of the Son 
of Man, and then adds : '*' This generation shall not 
pass till all these things be done ". What is the exact 
meaning of this declaration ? ^ 

As the context seems to show, " all these things '* 
that are to be realized during the present generation, 
are the very warning signs mentioned by Jesus. For, 
He has just said: " When you shall see all these things 
happening, know ye that the kingdom is near ". And 
it is plain that what marks simply the nearness of the 
Kingdom is not the advent of the Kingdom itself.^ 

Some critics think that the term " all things " refers 
to all that the Saviour has just described, including 
the final advent of the Son of Man. This interpreta- 
tion, however, can hardly agree with the context ; for, 
in the verses in question, we read : " When you shall 
see these things come to pass, know ye that it is very 
nigh, even at the doors " ; and then immediately after 
" Amen, I say to you, that this generation shall not 
pass, until all these things be done ". Nevertheless, we 
shall take this interpretation into account later. But 
what signs did Jesus make known to his disciples ? In 
order to ascertain this, we should bear in mind the oc- 
casion and purpose of the discourse. Remarkably 
enough, it is linked with a little episode which views 
directly the destruction of the Temple. The disciples 
admire the sacred edifice, and try to provoke the ad- 
miration of their Master. Jesus, in reply, declares 
that of this Temple there shall not remam a stone upon 
a stone. The impression made upon the disciples is 
that they are facing an extraordinary and unique event 

1 Mk. xiii. 30; Mt. xxiv. 34; Lk. xxi. 32 

2 Mk. xiii. 29; Mt. xxiv. 33; Lk. xxi. 31; Briggs, op. cit., 
p. 159. 



jBsvs thu son of god 445 

which they think is closely allied with the striking 
coming of the Kingdom. It is in this sense that they 
question Jesus ; but naught indicates at first that this 
connection between the ruin of the Temple and the 
end of the world was also in the mind of Christ. Nay 
more, the fact that He had first predicted the ruin of 
the Temple so greatly admired by the Apostles, and 
the fact that SS. Mark and Luke state that the 
Apostles simply asked when such a great event would 
occur, and what would be the visible marks of its ap- 
proach, warrant us in believing that Christ's imme- 
diate purpose was to point out to His disciples the 
warning signs of that catastrophe which He had just 
foretold.^ 

What further strengthens this interpretation is a 
comparison made of this passage with the former ones 
wherein Christ uses the same kind of language with 
regard to the Fall of Jerusalem. After declaring that 
the Pharisees have exceeded the crimes of their 
Fathers, He says that the final chastisement shall be- 
fall them : " Amen, I say to you, all these things shall 
come upon this generation ". The words *' all these 
things " which refer to this generation expressly 
mark the scourge that shall punish Christ's contem- 
poraries. We have good reason to believe that in 
again using the same expression in His discourse suc- 
ceeding the one delivered on the destruction of the 
Temple, Christ also directly and immediately referred 
to the ruin of Jerusalem itself. Hence the advent of 
the Son of Man would be above all presented as es- 
pecially to come after the signs mentioned, and, as it 
were, in the wake of that catastrophe which, it is 
stated, will surely arrive before the end of the present 
generation.^ 

1 Mk. xiii. 1-4; Mt. xxiv. 1-3; Lk. xxi. 5-7. 

2 Mt. xxiii. 36; cf. Lk, xi. 51; Beyschlag, op. cit., vol. i. p. 
197; Godet, Com. sur L'Ev. de S. Luc, vol. ii, p. 427; Swete, 
Gospel ace. to S. Mark, p. 315; Plummer, op. cit., p. 485; Rose, 



446 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Swete observes that ** the passage is similar to that 
of Matthew xxiii. 36, the meaning of which is not 
doubtful. The people actually living at that time shall 
see the fulfilment of the sentence pronounced against 
Jerusalem." ^ 

Plummer says : " The saying refers to the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, viewed as the type of the end of the 
world ". Such was also the opinion of Calmet.^ 

It is, to tell the truth, immediately after the catas- 
trophe that the last advent seems to be placed. After 
describing the trials of the period preceding the ruin of 
Jerusalem, its capture, and the flight of the Christians, 
the Evangelists at once present the picture of the last 
judgment. S. Luke, indeed, seems to imply an in- 
definite interval of time; while S. Mark suggests a 
mere transition, and S. Matthew employs the phrase: 
" immediately after the tribulation of those days." 
Thus, in S. Luke we read : " And they shall fall by 
the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captives 
into all nations ; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down 
by the Gentiles, till the times of the nations he ful- 
filled." In S. Mark : '' But in those days, after that 
tribulation, the sun shall be darkened and the moon 
shall not give her light ". In S. Matthew : " And im- 
mediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun 
shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her 
light ".^ 

Swete says that " the Lord simply predicts that His 
personal advent shall follow the taking of Jerusalem, 
instead of preceding and preluding it, as certain per- 
sons may have been tempted to hope." * 

Evang. selon S. Marc, p. 135; selon S. Matth., p. 186; selon 
S. Luc, p. 201; Calmet, Com. Litteral, vol. xix; LEv. de 
S. Math., p. 532. 

1 Swete, loc. cit. 

2 Plummer, loc. cit. 
^ Lk. xxi. 24. 

* Mk. xiii. 24; Swete, op. cit., p. 311; Mt. xxiv. 29. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 447 

On the other hand, the Parable of the Fig-Tree ap- 
pears really to present the events described by the 
Saviour, the accomplishment of " all these things '' 
which the present generation shall surely see, as the 
sign of the proximity of the Son of Man and of the 
Kingdom, so that the naming of the time by Jesus, 
although referring directly to the warning signs of the 
fall of Jerusalem, also refers indirectly to that glorious 
advent of the Son of Man to which it is closely allied. 

This may be all true; but it is worth while to look 
at the matter more closely. If, from the view-point 
of composition, considering the literary features of 
Prophecies, we take into account the particular condi- 
tions of our Synoptic writings, it does not seem that 
we can derive a very positive conclusion from the fact 
that the description of the last advent is closely related 
to the Palestinian disaster, even admitting the particle 
evdeuc added by S. Matthew. 

Possibly, here as elsewhere, notably in the Sermon 
on the Mount, we are dealing with collected fragments 
of the Savior's discourses rather than with a single, 
entire discourse, presenting a really homogeneous char- 
acter. Thus certain portions of this discourse as 
given in S. Matthew are related by S. Luke in con- 
nection with different circumstances ; others, again, 
which SS. Mark and Luke insert in this place, are 
placed elsewhere by the first Evangelist.^ 

There is, then, some critical basis for supposing that 
certain sentences, pronounced on different occasions, 
were used to enlarge the great discourse on the last 
things ; that sentences are separated which should be 
connected; that others, originally united by inter- 
mediary remarks or joined to some incident which 

1 Mt. v-vii; Lk. vi. 20-49; xi. 1-13, xii. 22-24; xiii. 24-27; 
cf. Mt. xxiv. 23, 27, 28; Mk. xiii. 21 and Lk. xvii. 23, 24, 27; 
cf. Mt. xxiv. 17-18, 37-41 ; Mk. xiii. 15-16 and Lk. xvii. 21-26, 
35; cf. Mk. xiii. 9, 11-13; Lk. xxi. 12-17 and Mt. x. 17-22; 
Lk. xii. 1 1- 12. 



448 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

specified their sense, have been grouped together with- 
out any transition or with artificial transitions that may 
be somewhat misleading as to the real and primitive 
view-point. Perhaps this holds good for the particle, 
" immediately " in the above text of S. Matthew ; and, 
if so, it should be considered rather as a logical transi- 
tion than as a strictly chronological connection. At all 
events, it may be that, in the original discourse de- 
Hvered by the Saviour, the diversity of view-points 
and of perspectives was more clearly defined than in 
our extant documents.^ 

That the different parts of the discourse on the last 
things, viz: Matt. xxiv. 4-14, 15-22, 23-28, 29-31, do 
not really follow each other in the order of time, but 
are rather a series of more or less parallel tableaux, is 
evident from the fact that, in the closing verse of the 
first section, v. 14, the author refers to the final " con- 
summation ". Before this consummation occurs, how- 
ever, it is expressly stated that there will be a period 
of universal evangelization. Possibly this verse 14 
corresponds to the expression " times of the Gentiles " 
mentioned by S. Luke who, in stating that the times of 
the Gentiles were to intervene between the Fall of 
Jerusalem and the final consummation, merely gave 
prominence to a feature already contained in the 
Synoptic documents and made its true and authentic 
signification evident.^ 

All that we say is : possibly the Synoptic accounts, 
particularly that of S. Matthew, do not reproduce this 
discourse of Jesus with all the transitions or distinc- 
tions whereby the Saviour may have suggested the 
different perspectives. Some critics, indeed, go farther, 
which we believe we cannot do, and claim that the 

1 Mt. xxiv. 28, 41 ; Lk. xvii. 35-37 ; Schmiedel, art. : Gospel, 
E. B. par. 145, col. 1885 ; Godet, Com. sur. I'Evang de S. Luc, 
vol. ii, p. 427, 436; Battifol, art: In Bullet, de Litt. EccL, 
1904, p. 59. 

2C/. Rom. xi. 25. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



449 



Evangelists misrepresented the Master's thought and 
transmitted their own ideas, in thus immediately con- 
necting the coming of the Son of Man with the fall 
of Jerusalem. Others have even held that the Evan- 
gelists merged with the discourse originally pro- 
nounced by Jesus an Apocalypse written by a Judaiz- 
ing Christian ; the assertion, then, that the Son of Man 
was to come again during the course of the present 
generation would belong to this Apocalypse; the 
Savior Himself having simply announced that the ruin 
of Jerusalem was near, and that His own return would 
occur at an unknown moment.^ 

Still others maintain that Jesus never spoke of His 
second advent in the sense of a personal return upon 
the clouds of heaven in order to judge the world and 
to finally establish the Kingdom ; and that He meant a 
spiritual and ideal advent which His disciples had mis- 
understood, materialized, and distorted, owing to their 
false Jewish views. ^ 

These several theories are, however, irreconcilable 
with the Synoptic tradition, so full and firm, as also 
with the dependence of the beliefs of the primitive 
Church upon the Saviour's teachings. The tenor of 
the discourse harmonizes with many details scattered 
through the first three Gospels, as we shall see later. 
Naught of the Synoptic records; naught of the 
beginnings of Christianity is intelligible if we do not 
admit that Jesus spoke as the Evangelists make Him 
speak, and that, in particular, He predicted His final 
advent in the form given substantially in our docu- 

1 Haupt, Die Eschat. Aussagen Jesu, 1895; Stevens, The 
Teachings of Jesus, p. 166; Theol N. T., p. 160; Bovon, 
Theol. N. T., 2 ed., vol. i, p. 483; Wendt, op. cit., p. 17; 
Charles, art.: Eschatology, E. B. par. 84, col. 1373; Schmiedel, 
art. : Gospels, E. B. par. 124, col. 1857 ; Holtzmann, H., op. 
cit., vol. i, p. 327. 

2Renss, JJist. of Christ. Theol, vol. i, p. 249; Colani, 
op. cit., p. 145; Bruston, Les Predictions de Jesus, 1899. 

2Q 



450 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ments, and placed it in special connection with the 
ruin of Jerusalem. 

Lagrange proposes the following hypothesis: '* May 
we not admit that the Evangehsts, while faithfully re- 
producing Jesus' words, had expressed some of their 
personal apprehensions concerning the end of the 
world? . . . The discourses on the last things reveal 
a two-fold thought: that of Jesus, and that of the 
Apostles, who were led to beUeve in a near and bril- 
liant parousia ; that of Jesus is alone taught explicitly ; 
while that of the Apostles is only suspected through 
their expressions and their arrangement of the Mas- 
ter's words." ^ 

Battifol also remarks : " That Jesus' hearers had 
materialized His advent as they had also the Kingdom ; 
that they had applied to the circumstances of that ad- 
vent certain features borrowed from Jesus' predictions 
concerning the chastisement of Jerusalem; that they 
had overcrowded the panorama with terrifying signs 
suggested by the Jewish apocalypses ; that they had 
represented that end as imminent ; and that this dis- 
turbing conception of coming events had disturbed the 
written tradition of Jesus' ' sayings ' concerning His 
advent, had confused the perspectives and exaggerated 
their features — all this is undeniable by anyone that 
examines these Logia concerning the last things." ^ 

We ourselves merely say that the difference of per- 
spectives, which is only insinuated, in Jesus' discourses 
— we shall see the reason very soon — was not, perhaps, 
understood and remembered by - the disciples in its 
original reality, precisely because the Divine Master 
had only suggested it and had desired to give the gen- 
eral impression that His advent was nigh. 

The lack of perspective, indeed, is a feature of that 

1 Lagrange, Rev. BibL, 1896, p. 475 ; 1903, p. 309 ; Godet, 
Com. Sur. L'Ev. de S. Luc, vol. ii, p. 427, 436, 439. 

2 Battifol, Bullet, de Lift. EccL, 1904, p. 47. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 451 

class of literature of which the above selection is a 
sample; so that this fact must be considered even if 
we admit that the discourse mentioned is an integral 
and homogeneous utterance of Jesus. Sacred pro- 
phecy usually resorts to descriptive tableaux of the 
future, each following the other without transitions, 
despite the divergence of the periods of time re- 
corded, and especially when the events are related one 
to the other as cause to effect, or as symbol to the 
thing prefigured. Hence, we may rightly think that 
the Saviour's discourse on the last things is a series of 
prophetic portrayals that refer either to the fall of 
Jerusalem or to the end of the world with a certain 
confusion of perspectives : a picture of the final com- 
ing might follow a description of the destruction of 
Palestine without it being stated that a considerable 
space of time should elapse between the two events, 
and without one being able to infer from mere literary 
juxtaposition, that there was an immediate chronolog- 
ical succession.^ 

But there is, no doubt, more than a juxtaposition of 
prophetic views of unequal extent. We may say, in- 
deed, that, generally speaking, the traits belonging to 
the different perspectives are intimately merged, or 
rather that the double perspective is sketched through- 
out the prophecy in such a manner that the descrip- 
tions given by the Saviour appear to refer at once to 
the Palestinian occurrence and to the end of the world. 

Nor is this surprising, if we but view the former 
event as a symbol and a figurative anticipation of the 
latter. Christ's final advent is to be above all else a 
judgment, the judgmen*t against the guilty world which 
shall be condemned and destroyed. But, before the 
end of the present generation, this final judgment shall 

1 Salmond, art. : Eschatology, H. D., p. 750 ; Briggs, Mes- 
sianic Prophecy, p. 52; Messiah of the Gospels, p. 156; 
Davidson, art. : Prophecy and Prophets, H. D., p. 121, 



452 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

be anticipated and its first act, as it were, performed: 
The unfaithful nation shall receive the chastisement 
for its crimes; the Son of Man shall come to begin 
the exercise of His authority as great Judge; while, 
on the other hand, the judgment which is to occur at 
the end of time shall prepare the way for the King- 
dom of God iri glory. 

Is it not indeed, this establishment of the Kingdom 
that we must see figured and anticipated in the Pales- 
tinian catastrophe? The destruction of Jerusalem 
and of the Temple, in forever putting an end to the 
ancient order of things, actually marks the final repu- 
diation of the Synagogue, and in a way the real be- 
ginning of the Church, as visibly constituted Mistress 
of the world and conqueror of the universe. It is the 
" new nation " which takes the place of the ancient 
people of God; it is Rome that becomes officially the 
new Jerusalem : It is truly the inauguration of the 
Kingdom of God on earth in the form of a universal 
society, publicly and definitely organized. Is it not, 
then, the symbol and the prelude of that glorious in- 
auguration of the Kingdom which shall follow the last 
advent ? ^ 

In this hypothesis, it is quite clear that the warning 
signs described by Jesus may, taken altogether and 
from a two-fold prophetic viewpoint, refer both to the 
Palestinian upheaval and to the end of the world. The 
same phenomena which were to precede the ruin of 
Jerusalem may have been adapted, transposed, and 
enlarged in order to represent the approach of the 
final cataclysm. Thus, that feature, " the Gospel 
preached to all nations ", first realized before the de- 
struction of Jerusalem inasmuch as the Gospel was 

1 Mt. xxi. 43 ; Maldonat, Com. In Quat. Evang., in Mt. xxiv. 
5; Calmet, op. cit., vol. xix : VEv. de S. Mt., p. 510; Fillion, 
Ev. de S. Mt., p. 469; Plummer, Com. Gosp. of S. Luke, p. 
477; Rose, Ev. selon S. Marc, p. 125; Lagrange, Rev. Bib., 
1896, p. 475. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 453 

first carried to all parts of the ancient world previous 
to that event shall be finally accomplished by the really 
universal evangelization which is to take place before 
the end of time. Perhaps, when the Saviour prefaced 
His description of the final advent by the words, '' im- 
mediately after the tribulation ", He referred chiefly 
to His former descriptions, in so far as they repre- 
sented, under the figurative form of warning-signs of 
the Jewish catastrophe, the signs of the end of the 
world itself. 

It is also easy to understand that, viewing the Pal- 
estinian disaster as a first act of judgment and a de- 
cisive moment for establishing the Kingdom of God 
as a society, Jesus may have had more or less directly 
in mind this particular calamity although apparently 
describing only the world's final drama, and may have 
in some way represented the approaching ruin of Jeru- 
salem under the symbolic coloring of the great event 
that it prefigured. " When you shall see all these 
things come to pass," said the Saviour, " know ye 
that the Son of Man is at the doors, and that the King- 
dom of God is nigh." This imminent arrival of the 
Son of Man, this approaching establishment of the 
Kingdom is undoubtedly Christ's judgment against the 
sinful generation which had persecuted Him and His 
disciples; it is the chastisement of the theocratic city, 
indicating the end of the ancient law and the public 
inauguration of the new religious state : it is, so to 
say, the first reahzation of that last judgment and of 
that final establishment of the Kingdom which the 
Saviour had also suggested.^ 

It is thus that we should interpret the verse : " This 
generation shall not pass, until all these things be 
done," if we suppose that the expression " all these 
things " refers, not only to the signs that herald the 
coming of the Son of Man, but to that very advent 

1 Mk. xiii. 29; Mt. xxiv. 35; Lk. xxi. 31. 



454 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

itself. In affirming that His advent would occur dur- 
ing the present generation, the Saviour had directly 
in mind the chastisement of Jerusalem but depicted it 
with expressions characteristic of the last advent, of 
which the Palestinian catastrophe was the symbol. 
What tends to establish this point is, as previously 
noted, the comparison made between this text and the 
analogous passages wherein Jesus simply announces 
the chastisement that is particular to this " sinful and 
unbeheving generation " and the special misfortune 
of Jerusalem. 

Some critics have carried this interpretation to ex 
tremes and have claimed that Christ announced no 
other advent than that which was accomplished in a 
figurative manner in 70 A. D. So that, in their view, 
the Parousia as the Saviour had conceived it, should 
be considered as an event wholly passed, and nobody 
should look for a personal advent of the Son of Man 
at the end of time.^ 

To thus limit the idea that Jesus had in mmd, as 
stated in the entire Synoptic declarations, and in the 
belief of the early Church, which depends upon His 
teachings, is impossible. The divine Master, in refer- 
ring to what was to happen during His own genera- 
tion, may have directly contemplated the punishment 
of the Jewish nation in particular when employing 
terms that referred to the last judgment. But His 
way of depicting this final judgment as something uni- 
versal, as extending to all men and to all nations, 
plainly shows that His thoughts extend beyond the 
mere symbol, and that, beyond the fall of Jerusalem, 
which expressly symbolized the end of the world as 
also the beginning of the Kingdom of God as a so- 
ciety, He beheld a final catastrophe incomparably 
greater, a judgment far more extensive, a final estab- 

1 Russel, The Parousia, 2 ed., 1887. 



lESUS THE SON OF GOD 455 

lishment of the Kingdom of God in glory at some 
period still uncertain.^ 

We may interpret in the same sense the similar sen- 
tence found in S. Luke's Gospel : " When these things 
begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads ; 
for your redemption is at hand." This approaching 
deliverance is an image and a prelude to the great 
Messianic deliverance which shall take place at the end 
of time. So too, at the last day, the triumphant Christ 
shall put down every powerful enemy, shall soon ex- 
terminate those who have oppressed His disciples. The 
last convulsions of the period just about to close, com- 
pared to the renewed world of the Kingdom of God, 
shall be Hke unto the travails of a child-bearing 
mother : thus the approaching crisis would prepare the 
way for the new order of things inaugurated by the 
ruin of the ancient alliance and by the establishment 
of the Church as a society. In this chastisement of 
the persecuting Jews, and in the inauguration of the 
Kingdom of God, taking possession of the world. 
Christians will have a presage and an assurance of 
that perfect deliverance, of that ideal regeneration 
which shall one day be realized in the Kingdom of 
Heaven. 2 

We may discover the same sense in a saying found 
elsewhere in S. Matthew, and which must belong to 
an eschatological discourse like the one we have just 
been examining : " When they §hall persecute you in 
this city, flee into another. Amen, I say to you, you 
shall not finish all the cities of Israel till the Son of 
Man come." This remark follows in the course of the 
tableau in which the Saviour outlines the trials and 
the persecutions awaiting the Apostles. This picture 
is identical with that found in the great discourse on 

1 Mt. xxiv. 30, 31; Mk. xiii. 27; Mt. xxv. 31 et seq.; Calmet, 
op. cit., p. 510. 

2Lk. xxi. 28; I Cor. xv. 24 et seq.; cf. Lk. xviii. 7-8; Mk. 
xiii. 8; Mt. xxiv. 8; xix. 28. 



456 • CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the last things : there is good reason to beheve that, in 
either case, by the near advent of the Son of Man, 
which shall terminate the persecution waged by the 
Jews by inaugurating against them the final judgment, 
Jesus directly refers to the chastisement of Jerusalem.' 

It is in the same sense, finally, that we should under- 
stand the saying related, in the course of S. Peter's 
profession of faith, by the three Synoptists : " Amen 
I say to you, that there are some of them that stand 
here, who shall not taste death till they see the King- 
dom of God coming in power." The Saviour, it seems, 
desires to give His disciples a glimpse of that per- 
spective of the universal judgment which shall be held 
at His last advent : *' He that shall be ashamed of me, 
and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful genera- 
tion: the Son of Man also will be ashamed of him, 
when He shall come in the glory of His Father with 
the holy angels." ^ 

But, supposing that the Saviour, in thus speaking, 
referred only to His last coming, we need not think 
that, in the remainder of His discourse. He speaks of 
His approaching advent in exactly the same sense. 
S. Mark clearly separates the two statements by means 
of the short transition : *' And He said to them." In 
the text of the three Synoptists, they may very well 
reproduce two sentences pronounced by the Master in 
the same circumstance ; the second, however, denoting 
a special progress in His thought, a different point of 
view, as an answer, no doubt, to one of these questions 
with which His disciples were familiar, or to a secret 
anxiety that disturbed their minds as to the epoch of 
the great event. 

But the manner in which S. Mark's account intro- 
duces into the first saying the idea of " that adulterous 

1 Mt. X. 23 ; cf. Calmet and Fillion ; Mangenot, art. : Fin 
du Monde, V. D., col. 2268. 

2Lk. ix. 27; Mk. ix. i {Vulgate, Mk. viii. 39) ; Mt. xvi. 28; 
Mk. viii. 38; Mt. xvi. 27; Lk. ix. 26. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



457 



and sinful generation/' leads one to think that the 
coming of the Son of Man in order to " render to 
every man according to his works," and especially to 
confound those who might be ashamed of Him, such 
as the Pharisees, refers not only to His last advent, 
but also and directly to His approaching judgment on 
Jerusalem which is symbolically represented with 
colours that suggest the final advent. The advent 
which the disciples anxiously await, the establishment 
of the Kingdom, the precise moment of which they 
were so eager to know, shall be first realized during 
the present generation : the Son of Man shall come 
like a king; He shall be the supreme judge of that 
guilty generation, and, by the terrible chastisement 
inflicted upon Jerusalem, He shall reveal "with 
power " the final establishment of His first Kingdom 
here below. This will be a sort or visible prelude and 
a real guarantee of what shall be realized at the end 
of time.^ 

Plummer remarks : " The expression * shall not taste 
death ' . . . implies that some people shall actually 
die after witnessing the advent of the Kingdom of 
God: which cannot refer to the Parousia," i. e., the 
Second Advent.^ 

If this be so, the Saviour does not fail to indicate, 
in a remarkable manner, the epoch of his first judicial 
advent. He appears to express Himself as if the 
catastrophe which menaces Palestine was to happen 
towards the end of the present generation, when only 
a few of His disciples would be alive. The expres- 
sion found in the Fourth Gospel presents exactly the 
same signification. After announcing to S. Peter the 
kind of death whereby He would glorify God, Jesus 
responds to his question about the Beloved Disciple: 

1 Mt. xvi. 27 ; Calmet, L'Ev. selon St. Mt., p. 273 ; Fillion, 
Ev. selon S. Mt., p. 332; Rose, Ev. selon S. Mt., p. 80. 

2 Plummer Com. Gospel ace. to S. Luke, p. 250 ; Godet, 
Com. sur I'Ev. de S. Luc, vol. i, p. 593. 



458 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

" So I will have him to remain till I come : what is 
it to thee ? '' In fact, the Palestinian catastrophe was 
to occur forty years after the Saviour's prediction. 
Most of those who had heard Him would be no 
longer living. Peter himself would have then just 
shed his blood in that very Rome which, upon the 
violent disparition of Jerusalem, was to become mani- 
festly what it had been in germ, the capital of the 
new Christian world. Nevertheless, many had not 
tasted death. And of this number, was the Beloved 
Apostle, S. John, who could welcome, in the Chris- 
tian church, arising from the ruins of the Synagogue, 
the anticipation of that final Kingdom of Christ to 
which he did not cease to aspire with all his heart."^ 

It is, then, by no means certain that what Jesus an- 
nounced as about to occur, in the course of His own 
generation, was His final advent. Yet, it seems to 
follow from all His declarations that He wished to 
impress His disciples with the fact that this final ad- 
vent was near. If He insists upon the unexpected- 
ness of His last coming; if He gives to understand 
that it might be delayed longer than was expected, 
that a long period of preparation would possibly in- 
tervene before the complete establishment of the King- 
dom ; it is no less true that the manner in which He 
seems to present the two events under one view, as 
projected upon the same screen and regardless of per- 
spective ; the way in which He seems to present the 
Palestinian disaster under features recalling His com- 
ing for final judgment — all this suggests that He Him- 
self had wished to allow His disciples to continue in 
their behef in the proximity of the end of the world. 

8. PERSUASION OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 

This attitude of Christ, which we cannot ascribe 
to error on His part, displays nothing more than we 

^ Jo. xxi. 22; Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 150; 
Apoc. xxi, and xxii. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



459 



could reasonably expect. We may rightly suppose, in- 
deed, that it was no part of His mission to reveal the 
distant date of His final advent, and that He had pro- 
vidential reasons for allowing His disciples to think 
that His coming was near at hand. 

Loisy, therefore, exaggerates when he thus sets forth 
the usual theological interpretation : " Christ, as man, 
possessed divine knowledge, and He deliberately left 
His disciples and posterity in ignorance and in error 
concerning a great many things that He could reveal 
without the least trouble " ; also when he qualifies that 
hypothesis as being " historically inconceivable ", and 
as " disconcerting to the moral sense ".^ 

On the contrary, the impression that Christ's coming 
was near at hand was a source of extraordinary moral 
strength for the primitive Christian Church. The 
disciples lived with their eyes turned toward heaven, 
watching the signs of the times so as not to be sur- 
prised by the arrival of the Lord ; ordering their con- 
duct in accordance with their conviction of expected 
judgment, fully heading the Master's teachings, freely 
breathing the Gospel life as a preparation for the 
Kingdom; drawing from the very intensity of their 
hope an heroic sanctity, a generous spirit of sacrifice, 
an intense zeal for the expansion of that new life 
which would give access to the Kingdom of God. 

If nothing unusual had happened before the end of 
the first Christian generation, Jesus' prophecy would 
have been given the lie in the most striking manner. 
But there came the great Palestinian catastrophe ! 
And what an unheard-of event it was ! In what 
striking accord with the Master's predictions ! Such 
a marvelous fulfilment of His word on this point fully 
served to assure people that the future kingdom also 
would come. The prospect of that Kingdom was, 
above all, a great hope which could only be strength- 

1 Loisy, Autour, p. 139. 



460 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ened by the terrible fate which befell Jerusalem. If, 
then, the glorious Kingdom was slow in coming; if 
the Son of Man did not as yet appear in triumph, 
people were naturally led to conclude that Christ, un- 
doubtedly, had not, as closely as it seemed, connected 
His last appearance with that disaster ; that the chastise- 
ment of the Holy City may have been the first advent 
of Christ the Avenger; that the Kingdom may have 
been already realized in the Church ; that all this great 
tragedy was a symbol, a prelude, and a sure warrant 
of that grand drama to be reaHzed at the end of time. 
From S. Paul's Epistles, indeed, as also from the 
Apocalypse, it seems to follow that, in a way, the King- 
dom of God is viewed as something already realized 
and recognized.^ 

Such a method of reasoning was logical and in 
keeping with the reality. The announcement of the 
end of the world during the present generation was 
taught more apparently than explicitly in the Saviour's 
discourses. What was certain is, that the ruin of 
Jerusalem served to confirm His word decisively. 
What was certain also is that His teaching could apply 
to a world destined to endure, as well as to a world 
about to end. 

So true is this that Renan could write : " If the doc- 
trine of Jesus had been simply the belief in an ap- 
proaching end of the world, it would certainly now 
be sleeping in oblivion. What, then, has saved it? 
The great breadth of the Gospel view, which has al- 
lowed men to find, under the same symbol, ideas suited 
to widely different moods of mind." Shall we say 
that the Saviour had not at all foreseen the adapta- 
tion of His Gospel to a world " continuing to endure?" 
Renan again makes this significant admission : " The 
world has not ended. . . . But it has been renewed, 
and in a measure renewed as Jesus wished. It is be- 

^Rom. xiv. 17; I Cor. iv. 20; Col. i. 13; iv. 11; Gal. vi. 15; 
2 Cor. V. 17. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 461 

cause His thought was two-sided that it has been fruit- 
ful. This true Kingdom of God — this Kingdom of the 
spirit, which makes each man king and priest; tliis 
Kingdom which, hke the grain of mustard-seed has 
become a tree overshadowing the world, among whose 
branches the birds have their nests — was understood, 
wished for, founded by Him. . . . We must, then, 
attach several meanings to the City of God as con- 
ceived by Jesus. . . . He proposed to Himself to 
create a new moral condition of mankind, and not 
merely to prepare for the end of that which exists." ^ 
The Church, therefore, was right in not calling in 
doubt the veracity of her Christ ; nor has she ceased 
to be faithful to Him. Confiding in His word, she 
keeps marching onward, her eyes uplifted towards 
heaven, awaiting the Kingdom of God who shall come 
one day in His glory and of which, in its present 
preparatory stage, she is an actual realization. The 
prospect of the Son of Man's coming for the last 
judgment is, as it were,, resting on the horizon of each 
Christian generation, and continues to produce the 
same salutary impression. The dread of the last day, 
surely to come, as also the hope of the promised King- 
dom, is for the Church an ever fruitful source of 
strength, of fervor, and of generosity. What holds, 
moreover, for the entire Church is constantly realized 
by each individual. The Christian also lives for Him, 
his glance raised on high, uncertain of the moment of 
death, but assured of eternal life, and finding, in his 
incertitude about the coming of that last hour, a con- 
stant motive for vigilance, in the certainty of the 
final judgment a salutary fear, in his assurance about 
the Kingdom a consolation for the evils of life, as well 
as an effectual impulse along the way of holiness.^ 

^ Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 288-289. 

2Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 178; Autour, p. 158 
ei seq. 



462 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Whatever may be thought of the details of our in- 
terpretation, a close examination of the Saviour's dis- 
courses, in accordance with the rules regulating pro- 
phetic utterances, and in the light of events, seems to 
guarantee its correctness as a whole. The unques- 
tionable fact of the Palestinian disaster, so remarkably 
serving to confirm Jesus' word, and the no less mar- 
velous fact of the development of the Church, con- 
formably to the Saviour's thought such as an impartial 
study of the Gospel makes it known to us, absolutely 
forbids us to impute to Him the formal error which 
has been alleged. 

What no less prevents us from supposing such error 
is the Saviour's remark uttered after His great dis- 
course on the last things : " Of that daj and that hour, 
no one knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the 
Son, but only the Father." Even supposing that this 
text implies a real ignorance on the part of the Son 
concerning the precise moment of the last advent, the 
declaration would at least prove that Jesus was aware 
of what He knew and of what He did not know ; and 
that His statements do not go beyond His positive 
knowledge.^ 

Naught is more remarkable than the Saviour's in- 
sistance upon the truth of His former prediction: 
" Of a truth I say to you : heaven and earth shall pass 
away, but my word shall not pass." An assurance so 
firm and so strongly expressed necessarily implies 
that Jesus possessed a supernatural kind of knowledge 
of which He was fully conscious. The Saviour's for- 
cible assertion, then, is inteUigible only from the view- 
point oi our theory, namely, that His discourse di- 
rectly refers to the ruin of Jerusalem. The text is 
inexplicable if we do not admit that, in the first place, 
He asserts the imminence of the Jewish calamity, and 

1 Mk. xiii. 2>^; Mt. xxiv. Z'^'y Mk. xiii. 30, 31; Mt. xxiv. 34, 
35 ; Lk. xxi. 32, zz- 



lESUS THE SON OF GOD 463 

that, by such an immediate display of His judicial 
and kingly power, He wishes to guarantee the cer- 
tainty of the final advent of the Kingdom in glory.^ 

The Saviour's utterance, at all events, as we have 
remarked before, does not compel us to suppose that 
He was absolutely ignorant of the epoch of the final 
advent. The Son who is ignorant of the last day is 
indeed the Man-Christ united substantially to the di- 
vinity ; but doubtless He is ignorant only as far as His 
humanity is concerned, because He cannot know that 
day by mere human science acquired by the natural 
process of His created intellect. Such knowledge may 
exist in His human intelligence, but only in virtue of 
a higher light cast upon it by the divinity ; and of this 
transcendent science the Saviour takes no account in 
the present case : it was not His mission to reveal this 
secret, nay it was His duty to practically ignore it 
because it was, and was to remain, the exclusive secret 
of His Father. The critics who admit that, in general, 
Christ was mistaken about the time of the last advent, 
interpret the fact referred to above as implying an 
absolute and real ignorance. Among Catholics, Schell 
has maintained such an interpretation and has been 
followed by Loisy.^ 

Jesus' declaration had essentially the same sense as 
that which He made at the moment of His ascension. 
He was asked if He were then going to restore again 
the Kingdom to Israel. But, leaving to the Holy 
Ghost the task of clearing His disciples' minds of 
their prejudices about the nature of the Kingdom, He 
merely answers : " It is not for you to know the times 
or moments, which the Father hath put in His own 

^ Lepin, Jesus Messie, p. 367. Above, p. 413. 

2Lepin, op. cit., p. 378; Schell, KatoUsche Dogmatik, 1892, 
vol. iii, p. 142 et seq.; Loisy art.: Rev. Bib.: L'Apoc. Synop- 
tique, 1896, p. 341 ; Maldonat, Com. In Math., xxiv, 36 ; Calmet. 
L'Ev. S. Mt., p. 533 ; FilHon. Ev. selon S. Mk., p. 188 ; Knaben- 
bauer, Ev. sec. Marcum, p. 355 ; Rose, Ev. selon S. Mk., p. 136. 



464 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

power." He did not say that He was ignorant about 
the matter; but He gave them to understand that it 
was not His part to reveal it.^ 

Nor is there anything to warrant us in believing 
that Christ had acquired, by His resurrection, a knowl- 
edge which He had not at all enjoyed as mortal man: 
remarkably enough, even in this instance He did not 
specify any more than He had done hitherto, what 
His disciples had no reason to know; and there is a 
perfect harmony between the discourses of the Risen 
Christ and those uttered before His resurrection. On 
the other hand, the specially characteristic expressions 
found in the Apostles' question, which we can in no 
way ascribe to the Evangelist nor to Christian tradi- 
tion, seem to fully guarantee the historical truth of the 
episode, and, in particular, of the Saviour's reply. It 
follows, therefore, that this statement supplies an au- 
thentic basis for our interpretation of Jesus' utter- 
ance.^ 

We may compare this text with Jesus' words to the 
Sons of Zebedee : '' To sit on my right hand, or on my 
left, is not mine to give to you, but to them for whom 
it is prepared by my Father." The Saviour was to 
possess absolute power in the Kingdom; He was to 
preside at the last judgment; to pronounce sentence 
of admission or exclusion; to render to each one ac- 
cording to his works. But, as man, He enjoyed this 
power only by delegation from His Father, in virtue 
of His participation in the divine nature and divine 
dignity; and in this sense it is that He may say that 
such power did not belong to Him but only to His 
Father : He exercises it in His humanity, but He holds 
it only by reason of His union with the divinity.^ 

1 Ac. i. 6, 7. 

2 Lepin, op. cit., p. 61, 62. Above, p. 114-115. 

3 Mk. X. 40 ; Mt. XX. 23 ; Mt. vli. 23 ; Lk. xiii. 27 ; Mt, xvi. 
27; Lk. ix. 26; Mt. XX. 8; xxiv. 51; xxv. 14; Lk. xix. 12 sq.; 
Mt. xxv. 31 ; Maldonat, Com. In, Mt. xxiv. 36. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 465 

The words of the divine Master are perhaps better 
understood, however, if we admit that, as Man, His 
ignorance of the last judgment was real, indeed, al- 
though only partial and relative. In fact, may we not 
suppose that the Saviour's supernatural knowledge, 
embracing all things — the last advent included — de- 
rivable from the divine light into a created intelli- 
gence, remained, in some manner, within a superior 
sphere of His soul, whence it had only a partial and 
discreet influence upon that knowledge which was 
practically to regulate His acts and to inspire His 
words ? 

The glory which, in virtue of the hypostatic union, 
should have fully clothed the Saviour's sacred body, 
was, in fact, held in abeyance by His oblation of Him- 
self as the victim for sin upon His entrance into this 
world; it was, for an instant only, revealed at the 
glorious transfiguration. In spite of the supernatural 
power inherent to His sacred humanity Jesus allowed 
free play to the outrages in the Praetorium and to the 
tortures on Calvary; just as the supreme beatitude, 
which should have permeated His soul so substan- 
tially united to the divinity, did not prevent His bitter 
sadness in the garden of Olives nor the anguish of 
His last agony upon the Cross. As S. Paul says : " He 
emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant." May 
we not admit that, Hkewise, Christ's infused and most 
perfect knowledge, co-existed with an ordinary and 
practical knowledge which although assuredly excel- 
lent was still limited, incompatible with error, and yet 
susceptible of ignorance, influenced by the higher light 
to the extent required by His mission, and for the rest, 
more or less dependent upon its human resources ? ^ 

This hypothesis, we think, furnishes a good explana- 
tion of Jesus' word concerning His ignorance of the 
last day; it explains the lack of precision and the re- 

^ Philippians ii. 7, 
30 



466 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

serve noticeable in the eschatological discourses ; it 
preserves the value of the testimonies which argue an 
experimental and progressive knowledge in the 
Saviour's mind, nor does it at all lessen that higher 
knowledge required by the hypostatic union, which, 
moreover, is attested by the entire history of Christ. 

Assuredly, it is hard to comprehend how there could 
exist in the Saviour's soul both a knowledge that was 
infused, independent of physical organs and of time, 
and a knowledge that was experimental, acquired, and 
maintaining, in ordinary life, its normal role and 
free exercise. But is it surprising to find mysterious 
features in Jesus' unique humanity ? Is it strange that 
our paltry psychology cannot analyse the intellectual 
operations of the Man-God? Since we are justified 
in admitting that the Saviour possessed two species 
of knowledge, it is reasonable to suppose that there 
was between these two sorts of knowledge an extra- 
ordinary and impenetrable relation. And is not the 
relation we have described in better accord with the 
Gospel facts, taking into account all the complex ele- 
ments displayed in Jesus' attitude and language? 

In any case, however limited and imperfect be the 
Saviour's ordinary knowledge, the especially important 
feature, which any impartial critic must admit, is that 
Christ possessed, in His humanity, a most perfect 
superior knowledge, in which, absolutely speaking, no 
kind of error is admissible. 

The hypothesis proposed above appears to us as 
suited to harmonize the exigencies of the hypostatic 
union, proper to the Saviour's humanity with the lit- 
eral sense of the text. It would also shed an abundant 
light upon some remarkable statements of several 
Fathers of the Church, especially S. Athanasius.^ 

It has been thus expressed by M. Olier: " The higher 

IS. Athanasius, Against the Avians, or. 3, n. 43; Epistle 
to Serapion, n. 9 ; Vacant, art. : Agnoetes, V. D., vol. i, col. 590. 



lESUS THE SON OF GOD 467 

portion of the soul of our Lord, the understanding, 
the memory, and the will, was, so to say, divided in two, 
i. e., it acted in two different ways. By God's abso- 
lute power, one section of this higher sphere enjoyed 
God in the light of glory; and yet that very power 
so operated, that the soul was not absorbed in glory 
to such an extent that there remained nothing of that 
reasoning part which reasons about things even when 
despoiled or deprived of the light of glory. . . . The 
part which did not enjoy the glory was aware of things 
past, present, and future, as we, here below, enjoy the 
revelation of God's mysteries, but only in so far as 
is allowed during this passing life, in which we could 
not bear a full revelation of hidden mysteries. So 
God in some way desired to keep them hidden from 
His Son, as though He were a pilgrim on earth, and 
to reveal them to Him fully only after His resur- 
rection. It was a knowledge which His condition of 
Victim for the sins of men and His state of servitude 
had kept far from Him, and of which He had been de- 
prived hitherto. Hence it was as a pilgrim and as the 
Servant of His Father, that our Lord said to His 
disciples : " I know not such thing. ... I know not 
the judgment day." It is in this quality that He is 
ignorant of it. The Servant knoweth not what His 
Master doth, he is ignorant of His secrets. So, too, 
our Lord said to SS. James and John, before His re- 
surrection, when still a victim for sin : " To sit on my 
right hand, or on my left, is not mine to give to you, but 
to them for w^hom it is prepared." But I can, in my 
present condition, distribute the crosses, although not 
the glory. My Father has reserved that right to Him- 
self." ^ 

In a slightly different sense, Lagrange says : " If 
S. Matthew clearly affirms that the Son does not 
know the hour of judgment, to deny it on the pretext 

1 Olier, Memoir e^ Mqnuscrits, March 16, 1641, 



468 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

that Christ knew all things, is to go counter to the 
principle of S. Thomas : we must abide by the au- 
thority of Scripture. But to conclude from this par- 
ticular ignorance before the resurrection that Christ 
did not, even then, enjoy the beatific vision, is another 
paralogism ; for is it not possible to behold the essence 
of God without penetrating the secrets of His will ? " ^ 

9. JESUS CONSCIOUS OF HIS PERSONALITY AND DESTINY. 

To apply, then, the foregoing principles to Jesus' 
consciousness of His own personality and of His des- 
tiny. Since we must admit that the Saviour possessed 
supernatural knowledge, derived from the divine light, 
it is hard to suppose that this supernatural knowledge 
did not have for its primary object the character of 
His own very being and the precise role which He had 
to play. Indeed, the hypostatic union, if it does not ab- 
solutely require, at least demands it as quite fitting, 
that He should be fully conscious of His relation with 
God and of His mission to men. Nor can we help 
thinking that, from His Incarnation, before He en- 
joyed the use of His bodily organs, before He had any 
experience. He perceived, by supernatural and infused 
knowledge. His substantial union with the divinity 
and His destiny as the Messiah-Redeemer. 

If, then, there was any progress in His conscious- 
ness of being the Son of God and Messiah, it could 
take place only in the experimental and inferior part 
of His consciousness. The fact that the Saviour pos- 
sessed a knowledge that was really human and ac- 
quired, subordinate to His higher knowledge while 
maintaining its natural exercise, warrants us in sup- 
posing that, as He grew in age, as His organs devel- 
oped, as His thoughts became deeper, and His experi- 
ence wider, He secured a more complete and more 

1 Lagrange, Rev. Bib., 1896, p. 454; cf. Bullet, Litf, Eccl.y 
1904, p. 15: 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 469 

perfect understanding of that transcendent union 
which He enjoyed with God and of that mission 
which He was destined to achieve among men. It is 
only in this sense that we may claim that events like 
the Baptism, the Temptation, the persecutions of the 
Pharisees, influenced His appreciation of His Mes- 
sianic vocation, of the character of His mission, and 
of His sufferings. 

Yet, we must not fail to remark that in no way do 
these events seem to play, in the formation of Christ's 
experimental consciousness, the important and decisive 
part which has been alleged. The Baptism, as pre- 
viously seen, does not appear to have led to an im- 
portant progress in the Saviour's own ideas about His 
Messiahship: it was rather the providential event 
which determined Him to undertake a mission which 
He knew fully before. Jesus did not then receive the 
final revelation of His vocation, but rather the solemn 
invitation which He had expected from His Father 
in order to enter upon His Messianic career, and a par- 
ticular communication of the Holy Ghost in view of 
the perfect fulfilment of His ministry. So, too, the 
Temptation in the desert did not apparently change at 
all the Saviour's ideas about His Messianic office, nor 
did the Pharisaic persecution really reveal to Him 
His destiny of death. 

Moreover, the truly important thing in this matter 
is that the existence, in the sacred Humanity of Jesus, 
of a higher and most perfect consciousness, apart 
from His acquired knowledge, is unquestionable, alike 
from the standpoint of Gospel criticism and of the- 
ology. As a matter of fact the Gospel represents 
Him as being conscious, long before the events, of 
the precise epoch and of the exact circumstances of 
His death: and it is impossible to ascribe to this 
knowledge a human origin. It is also a fact that, 
from the beginning of His ministry, Christ is repre- 
sented as being fully aware of His Messianic dignity 



470 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



and of the spiritual character of His mission. And 
the Saviour, finally, appears to us enlightened from 
above, at the age of twelve years, concerning His di- 
vine filiation and vocation, and such is the inward con- 
viction to which He bears witness, so extremely deep 
is His persuasion, that, as we have seen, the most 
independent critics recognize a kind of inborn quality 
in His consciousness.^ 

Are we not, therefore, logically led to believe the 
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he de- 
scribes Christ, from the very first moment of His en- 
trance into the world, as offering Himself, body and 
soul, to His Father, in order to supplant the ancient 
sacrifices and to redeem mankind? 

CONCLUSION. 

In his book entitled '' The Gospel and the Church," 
Loisy claims to take '* the point of view of history." 
He also stated later that " he had endeavored to de- 
pict the historic physiognomy of the Saviour . . . the 
historic form of Christ's appearance." Now, in as- 
suming that position, he thought he was warranted in 
asserting that, theologically speaking, Christ was not 
conscious of being the Son of God. " It is simply a 
question of ascertaining," says he, " if the representa- 
tion of the Gospel fact, in the * Gospel and the 
Church,' sufficiently conforms to the reality." Again, 
he remarks: " If that explanation is defective, it is by 
writings of the same class, but more satisfactory, that 
his imperfections will be corrected. . . . The be- 
lievers in the divinity of Christ must be reassured by 
an interpretation of the Gospel and of the documents 
of ecclesiastical antiquity, according to the rules which 
are now usually applied to all human texts, due atten- 
tion being also paid to the movement of contemporary 
thought in the philosophic order." ^ 

^Lepin, op. cit., p. 200. Above, p. 244. 
2 Loisy, The Gospel and the Church, p. 2 ; Autour, p. viii. 
112, 114; xxviii. 



JESUS THE SON OF GOD 



471 



This is what we have sought to do in the present 
work; and yet, in taking the position indicated by 
Loisy, we have reached quite different conclusions. 
We have seen that the facts, since it is a question of 
facts, are not such as he has represented in his work 
on " The Gospel and the Church " ; that his " represen- 
tation of the Gospel facts," is narrow, incomplete; 
that it does not square with the entire sacred testi- 
mony, and consequently does not conform to the whole 
reality. In interpreting the Gospels according to the 
rules of the most serious criticism, we have shown 
that Jesus was truly aware of His divinity, and that 
He revealed it prudently, although sufficiently, in His 
words and deeds. 

The dogma of Christ's divinity, as afterwards for- 
mulated in the Christian Church, does not come, 
therefore, solely from the faith of Christians : it 
truly has its foundation and its principle in the Gospel , 
it is but the true expression, the exact translation of 
the testimony of history. 

Our conclusions are, indeed, such as can truly re- 
assure '' the believers in the divinity of Christ " ; and 
if it be admitted that those conclusions are firmly 
established in the foregoing pages, it would seem that, 
with better right than " The Gospel and the Church ", 
this present work might be deemed '' an homage to 
the Christ-God ". To quote a phrase Loisy used in 
referring to " The Gospel and the Church ", the little 
book, despite its faults and with all its didactic aridity, 
is an homage to the Christ-God ".^ 

Loisy thinks that, " in the matter of hypotheses or 
of theories corresponding to the data of human science 
at a given period of history, we refute only what 
we are able to replace by something better." It is for 
the reader to judge if our presentation of the Gospel 
testimony may claim to supplant the one given by 

1 Loisy, Autour d'un Petit Livre, p. 22, ihid., p. 8. 



472 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Loisy. We would be glad if we had succeeded in 
showing that, viewed in the light of exact and com- 
plete criticism, the Gospel really portrays the Christ 
of the Church: Jesus-Messiah, Son of God and Son 
of Man, both true God and true Man. 



CHAPTER V. 

Recent Theories of Loisy on Jesus Messiah and 
Son of God. 

The ideas which were sketched out in the " Gospel 
and the Church ", and in '* About a Httle book ", on 
the messiahship and divinity of Jesus, have recently 
been taken up again and developed by Loisy in his 
large commentary on the Synoptic Gospels. What 
change have the opinions of our critic undergone con- 
cerning this capital subject? And what judgment 
must we pass upon his hypotheses, now that he gives 
of them a complete exposition which, very likely, em- 
bodies his final conclusions ? ^ 

expose of loisy's theories. 

Loisy continues to affirm that, undoubtedly, Jesus 
has believed and proclaimed Himself to be the Mes- 
siah. 

Messianic Manifestations and Declarations. — 

" The radical hypothesis of some critics,^ he says, 
who claim that Jesus Himself never thought He was 
the Christ, and that His disciples believed Him to be 
so only after they had acquired faith in the resurrec- 
tion of their Master, seems inadmissible. If Jesus 
has not been condemned as King of the Jews, that is 
to say as Messiah, we might as well contend that He 
never existed. And did not the disciples rather believe 
that Jesus rose again from the dead because they had 

1 Cf., above, pp. 136, 174, 233-235, 280-305 ; Loisy, Les Evan- 
giles Synoptiques, vol. i, pub. by the author, 1907; in 8°, 
p. 1014; vol. ii, 1908, p. 818. 

2 Brandt, Wrede. Wellhausen expresses almost the same 
opinion. Cf. above, pp. 129- 131. 

(473) 



474 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

previously believed that He was the Christ ? " *' All 
subsequent speculations, including the most recent 
analyses of the messianic consciousness of Jesus, van- 
ish before these simple words : ' Art thou the Christ ? 
Art thou the King of the Jews? Thou hast said it.' 
Although His conception of the Kingdom was a purely 
religious and moral one, Jesus none the less looked 
upon Himself as the Messiah promised to Israel and 
the future King of the elect." ^ 

This first point being thus settled, critics ask them- 
selves when and how did Jesus manifest His quality of 
Messiah. '' From the point of view of history, Loisy 
declares, two things seem to be certain, which con- 
tradict and set at naught most of the explicit indica- 
tions that are now to be found in the texts : Jesus re- 
frained from declaring Himself to be the Messiah 
until a rather late period of His ministry, and He 
avoided giving Himself as such during the whole of 
the Galilean mission ; in going to Jerusalem, He had 
the intention of proclaiming Himself the Christ, or 
the hope of being pointed out as such by the manifes- 
tation of the heavenly Kingdom ; at least, it is in His 
quality of Messiah and because He acknowledged it, 
that He was condemned to death by Pilate, upon the 
denunciation of the Sanhedrin." - 

But, if we must admit that the explicit and direct 
manifestation of His Messiahship took place at a 
rather late period of His public life, it remains true, 
none the less, that the Saviour was conscious of His 
dignity from the very beginning of His ministry. 

" Several critics,^ Loisy remarks, have thought that 
Jesus began to preach without being conscious of His 
messianic vocation, and that He became aware of 

1 Loisy, Les Evang. Synopt., vol. i, p. 212; Id. ibid., p. 192; 
cf. above, pp. 132-136. 

2 Loisy, op. cit., p. 192. 

3 Renan among others. Cf. above, pp. 200-204. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OP GOD 475 

this vocation during the course of His ministry, a 
short time before the disciples recognized it through 
St. Peter's confession. Such a hypothesis is in itself 
neither impossible nor unlikely. Yet, it is not easy 
to see how Jesus* experiences could have led Him to 
believe He was the Messiah, if He had not been con- 
vinced of it at first. The difficulties which very soon 
began to counterbalance His success, would have sug- 
gested doubt rather than certitude concerning the great 
advent and all that was connected with it. The Gos- 
pels do not really bear witness to any evolution taking 
place in the conscience of the Saviour and in His ap- 
preciation of the role which was assigned to Him by 
Providence. There is hardly any room for such an 
evolution in the short space of His public career. The 
most natural explanation of the initiative He took 
after the imprisonment of John the Baptist, does not 
seem to be that He thought it necessary to substitute 
Himself for the captive prophet, but that He thought 
He was qualified to prepare the approaching inaugura- 
tion of the Kingdom, since He was the predestinated 
Head thereof. The very simple fundamental ideas 
and sentiments which constitute His Gospel seem to 
be firmly rooted in His mind from the very beginning : 
namely, a purely moral and religious conception ot 
the Kingdom and of the conditions of admittance 
into it ; an intimate consciousness of possessing a 
unique authority to set off those ideas in His preach- 
ing and to bring about their realization. So Jesus is 
fully prepared for His role when He begins to teach. "^ 
" The Kingdom of God," Loisy goes on, " is not a 
political institution, and the establishment thereof is 
not to be brought about by those means which serve 
to found monarchies, or to promote, guarantee and 
protect the independence of nations. The joys of 
the heavenly Kingdom belong essentially to the moral 

1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 212-213. 



476 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

order, its law is justice. . . . The Gospel therefore 
shall not be the undertaking of a holy war, with a view 
of securing, through rehgious motives, the national 
freedom ; it shall be a preparation of the hearts of men 
for the establishment of that justice which God de- 
mands from His faithful before manifesting His glory 
to them." ^ 

But, if Jesus was thus conscious of His vocation 
from the time He entered upon His pubHc career, why 
did He not im.mediately proclaim Himself the Mes- 
siah, and how is it that He still wishes to make a 
secret of this quality even after the disciples have ac- 
knowledged it in Him? Loisy continues to explain 
this fact by the hypothesis that Jesus believed Him- 
self to be, not the acting, but only the future Messiah, 
the Messiah by destination. 

He says : " If Jesus, in the discourses which we may 
look upon as the* most authentic expression of His 
thought, seems to be concerned chiefly about the King- 
dom, and not about His person and role, if He rather 
avoids proclaiming Himself the Messiah, if He im- 
poses upon His disciples the reserve which He Him- 
self keeps, it is because He was not yet playing that 
role of Messiah, it is because the present conditions 
of His existence and of His action were not such as 
became the Vicar of God on earth. As a matter of 
fact, there was no Messiah as long as there was no 
Kingdom. It was not Jesus' but the Father's part to 
manifest the Christ. The Messiah was to be revealed 
to all in the advent of the Kingdom of God. An un- 
timely and premature declaration could not fail to pro- 
voke a conflict with the civil authorities, and would 
undoubtedly be understood by many as a direct ap- 
peal to national independence. But these two motives 
would not suffice to explain the attitude and the lan- 
guage of the Saviour. If He does not proclaim Him- 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 231-232. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 477 

self the Messiah, it is because there is no reason for 
it; in one sense He is not yet truly the Messiah, He 
only expects to become such ; an absolute claim would 
therefore be at variance with His present condition, 
with the idea He Himself has of the messianic func- 
tions. He is the person to whom these functions are 
reserved: Peter's confession has no other meaning." ^ 

" As the messianic King," Loisy writes, " Jesus 
will be the Vicar of God; as long as He is preaching 
the coming of the Kingdom, He has not yet entered 
upon His providential functions. He is not yet estab- 
lished in the relations which that role will create be- 
tween Him and the Creator. It must be taken for 
granted that, with due proportion, His own condition 
was to be altered just as much as that of all the pre- 
destinated inhabitants of the Kingdom; He Himself, 
indeed, was no more Christ than those who believed 
in His word were actually citizens of the Heavenly 
Kingdom; just as they did, so was He also expecting 
from the Father the fulfilment of His promises ; in 
the meanwhile, He was acting as a son, He was prac- 
ticing that absolute confidence which He recommended 
to His disciples as being the first, and we may say the 
only duty towards God." " 

But, the main point is to know whence did Jesus 
draw the conviction, found in Him from the very be- 
ginning of His ministry, that the messianic dignity 
belonged to Him. If we may believe Loisy, who is 
but an echo of Strauss, the Saviour from His early 
boyhood, had cherished in His soul the sentiment of a 
particularly close union with God; very early, too. He 
believed He was destined to devote His life to God by 
the fulfilment of a special religious mission; for, on 
the day of His baptism by John the Baptist, we see 
Him, free from all human ties, ready to entQr upon 

^ Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 213. 

2 Loisy, op. cit., vol, i, p. 242; above, pp. 174-175, 



478 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

His public career; yet, it is on that day only that He 
seems to have had a complete revelation of the mes- 
sianic role that was awaiting Him. 

Says our critic : " Religious feelings together with 
the hopes of the Jewish people must have got hold of 
His soul from His most tender years and predomi- 
nated in Him during His youth, since we see Him, in 
His thirtieth year, free from all human bonds, ready 
to obey the call that impels Him to leave His work- 
shop, His home, His native land." " It was probably 
John the Baptist who, unknown to himself, awakened 
the Saviour's vocation. The crisis through which 
Judsea was passing had given rise to a Prophet. John 
was preaching penance and administering baptism for 
the remission of sins, in view of the great judgment 
that was about to take place, and of the Kingdom of 
God that was about to come. . . . Jesus was attracted 
like the others, but perhaps was He drawn, as nobody 
else was, by a deeper interest in that reign of justice 
which John the Baptist said was so near at hand. He 
caused Himself to be baptized and then remained for 
some time in the wilderness." ^ 

Long before Loisy, Strauss had written in his Life 
of Jesus: " It was not from the prophecies relating to 
the Messiah, or the conviction that He was the Mes- 
siah that the peculiar self-consciousness of Jesus de- 
veloped itself, but, conversely, it was from His own 
self-consciousness that He came to the conviction that 
in the messianic prophecies no one could be meant but 
He; the consciousness, therefore, that He was the 
Messiah was, looking at His general religious con- 
sciousness, not the first thing, but the second, not the 
original, but the derived consciousness." Again : " It 
was natural for Jesus to be induced to undertake the 
journey to the Jordan by what He heard of the Bap- 
tist, since He also was dissatisfied with the existing 

1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 206-207, 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 479 

system of religion ;" and finally : " Jesus was bound 
by no domestic or social ties." ^ 
The Part Played by Jesus' Baptism. — " If it 

be permitted," Loisy says in another passage, *' to 
venture upon a hypothesis in so obscure a matter, 
one could say that Jesus, in the humble house of 
Nazareth, had grown up as a Son of God through 
piety, unfolding His pure soul under the eyes of the 
Heavenly Father, although the thought of the great 
role which the Messiah was to play in the world did 
not at first have any place in the intimate intercourse 
of that soul with God. This preoccupation probably 
entered His mind later on, either under the influence 
of the current messianic ideas, or as a result of the 
preaching of John announcing the near advent of the 
Kingdom of God. Be it as it may, the meeting with 
John was a circumstance eminently suited for a divine 
revelation ; it was there, by the side of the Prophet who 
gave himself as the precursor of the Messiah, or at 
least as the herald of the Heavenly Kingdom, that 
Jesus, who was already Son of God through the inti- 
mate consciousness of His union with the celestial 
Father, received the supreme intuition of His provi- 
dential mission, and that He felt He was the Son of 
God, the Messiah promised to Israel." - 

The baptism, therefore, has been ''a capital fact" in 
the earthly career of Jesus. Loisy, of course, does not 
wish us to take the evangelical narrative literally ; the 
tendency of tradition ''in this, as well as in other cases, 
has b^en to transform into a visible scene, into a ma- 
terial fact, what was chiefly, and one may say exclu- 
sively, an internal phenomenon, which the historian 
must not think of describing; " tradition seems to have 
" condensed into one fact a whole psychological pro- 

1 Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, Eng. transl., 1865, vol. i, 
I. 264, 265, 268. 
Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 408; above, p. 234 



PP 
2 



48o CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

cess which it could not, any more than we can, at- 
tempt to analyze." It remains none the less true that 
he regards the episode of the baptism as a decisive 
moment in the formation of the messianic conscious- 
ness of the Saviour, although this consciousness, it 
goes without saying, was still capable of more pre- 
cision and development.^ 

" That Jesus," he declares, " found in His bap- 
tism the decisive revelation of His messianic role, 
that the consciousness of His divine filiation got hold 
of Him with a force hitherto unknown and never to 
be lost afterwards, this at least may be considered as 
the solid foundation of the traditional narrative. But 
that this revelation was the first, absolutely speaking; 
that it was not prepared by the whole anterior life of 
Jesus and that it was not completed later on, this the 
critics cannot admit, and tradition, strictly speaking, 
never held. The revelation connected with the baptism 
could be made only to a soul disposed to receive it; 
on the other hand, the historical meaning of the ac- 
count of the temptation is that Jesus must have en- 
deavored to learn more about the providential con- 
ditions of His vocation; and one may say that this 
progressive education, which was partly the result of 
experience, went on up to the time of His death." ^ 

Thus, His stay in the wilderness, after His baptism, 
threw, it is assumed, a new and clear light, upon the 
moral conditions of His role. Such is, in fact, the 
meaning of our actual narratives. " Jesus more and 
more completely influenced by the idea of the Heavenly 
Kingdom, spent some time in the wilderness; there 
He was haunted by the consciousness, growing con- 
stantly clearer, of His own vocation." ^ 

" Had not tradition mentioned this retreat in the 

1 Loisy, op. cit., p. 409; above, pp. 140-141. 
^Id. ibid., vol. i, p. 408; above, pp. 234-235. 
^Jd. ibid., p. 207. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 481 

wilderness," Loisy observes, " we should almost pre- 
suppose it. ... A time for reflection and for prepara- 
tion was indispensable between the carpenter's Hfe and 
the manifestation of the evangelical preacher. We may 
admit that Jesus' vocation manifested itself on the 
occasion of His baptism, but, to follow this vocation, 
it was necessary, first of all, to weigh the conditions 
thereof ; the Spirit by whom Jesus was made the 
Christ could not fail to lead Him into the wilderness ; 
and Jesus in the wilderness was to be tempted by the 
Devil and agitated by opposite ideas : on the one hand, 
the ideal of simple, genuine piety which had been, so 
far, the food of His soul, together with the spiritual 
elements of the Jewish messianic conceptions ; on the 
other hand, the current fancies, the ideas of earthly 
triumph. The solution of the conflict is in the pro- 
gramme which Jesus has deliberately followed, and 
which asserted itself, in presence of the same tempta- 
tions, during the whole length of His ministry: to 
prepare men to the advent of the Kingdom by the 
conversion of the heart, and to rely entirely upon God 
for the determination of the day and manner in which 
the great advent was to be brought about." ^ 

Illusions Concerning the Future. — But, though 
He had definite ideas on the spiritual character of 
His vocation, Jesus was very far from having an 
equally clear consciousness of His suffering destiny. 
If we may believe Loisy, the Saviour's mind was 
running in a quite opposite direction, and He never 
foresaw with any degree of certitude what the future 
had in store for Him. The Kingdom whose advent 
He was announcing was to come. He thought, without 
delay; it was going to manifest itself shortly, unex- 
pectedly; He Himself, therefore, was about to enter 
into His messianic glory. 

Such was His hope while He was repairing to 

1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 427; cf. pp. 423-424; above, p. 141. 
31 



482 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

the Jewish capital : " He was not going to Jerusalem 
to die; He was going thither to prepare and bring 
about, at the risk of His own life, the advent of God." 
The obstacles which He had met so far, had simply 
caused Him to " surmise " and *' this, perhaps, only 
at rare intervals and in a vague manner, that the Mes- 
siah was running the risk of not entering into His 
glory except through the door of death." After the 
bold manifestation of His triumphal entry into Jeru- 
salem and His many challenges to' the religious leaders 
of the nation, the situation became such that " no 
denouement was possible, except through a miracle 
or a catastrophe, and it was the latter which happened 
to pass. Jesus had not failed to foresee it, but He had 
not ceased either to hope for the miracle, because He 
had not ceased to count upon the advent of the King- 
dom." ^ 

The same illusion He kept until the last Supper, 
until His agony in the Garden, until His last moment 
upon the Cross. ^ 

Thus '* Jesus considered death as being possible, 
and, in case it should come to pass, as being the provi- 
dential condition for the realization of the Kingdom 
about to come, but not as being in itself a necessary 
element of His messianic functions : He looked upon 
it as a risk He had to run, as a danger He had to face, 
but not as the salutary action by excellence, the ac- 
tion to which His ministry must tend and upon which 
the future essentially depended." ^ 

" Jesus," says Strauss, " might certainly have had a 
foreboding of His own fall and prepared Himself 
for the worst, but still, as an intelligent man. He must 
have had a scheme in readiness in case of His success, 
though that became more improbable every day." 

1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 213, 214, 218. 

2 Id. ibid., vol. i, pp. 219-222 ; above, pp. 234, 242. 
^Id. ibid., p. 243. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 483 

And again : " Jesus might have foreseen that His end 
was approaching, He might, indeed, have had His 
suspicion against the faith of one, the constancy of 
another of His disciples, and not have concealed them. 
But He is said also to have known decidedly before- 
hand, and to have declared that on this very night His 
destiny will be fulfilled, to have expressly pointed out 
Judas as the traitor, to have predicted to Peter a three- 
fold denial of Him before the next crowing of the 
cock. . . Every part of this is as difficult to conceive 
historically as it is easy to explain psychologically." ^ 

Such would be, then, according to Loisy, the reality 
of history. Any detail which, in the Gospels, con- 
tradicts these simple data or in any way disagrees 
with them, is supposed to be the work of Christian 
tradition, the product of primitive faith or apologetics. 

The Work of Tradition —If we may believe him, 
Christian apologists first of all endeavored to do away 
with the scandal caused by the death of Christ, by 
representing it as determined upon by a divine decree, 
and foreseen and foretold by the Saviour Himself. 
But it was not enough that death should be for Jesus 
something more than the end of a grand illusion ; " it 
was necessary also that His ministry, including both 
His actions and His teachings should be in keeping 
with the messianic dignity." ^ 

Jesus had confessed His messianic dignity only 
towards the end of His ministry: by anticipation, the 
apologists ascribed to the beginning of His career 
messianic manifestations in great number. At the 
same time, the miracles, the cures of those possessed 
by the devils and others cures of a different kind, were 
appealed to and made use of as a direct evidence of 

1 Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, authorized transl., vol. i, 
pp. 384, 388. 

2 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 180; cf. p. iii. See Les theories 
de Mr. Loisy, Expose et critique, Paris, Beauchesne, 1908, 
pp. 201-209. 



484 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

His messiahship : they " became both a proof of His 
power and a messianic manifestation." " Thus primi- 
tive recollections took an ideal turn, received mes- 
sianic coloring, and were completed and enlarged into 
symbols of doctrine, of power, of divinity." ^ 

But " since the messianic manifestation was ante- 
dated and ascribed to the beginning of His ministry, 
it became indispensable to mark out the starting-point 
thereof, and it was of great importance that this start- 
ing-point should be significant. Thus are explained 
the theatrical scene of the baptism and the christian 
interpretations of the relations which had united Jesus 
and John. ... It was admitted that the baptism of 
Jesus by John had been really the baptism of Christy 
His consecration as the Messiah through the commg 
upon Him of the Divine Spirit who had from that 
moment taken possession of Him." ^ 

Later on, when tradition reached the end of its evo- 
lution, this messianic consecration " was ascribed even 
to the time of Jesus' conception." ^ 

"When the messianic dignity of Jesus," says Strauss, 
" began to be acknowledged among the Jews, it was 
thought appropriate to connect His coming into pos- 
session of the requisite gifts, with the epoch from 
which He was in some degree known, and which, from 
the ceremony that marked it, was also best adapted to 
represent that anointing with the Holy Spirit, ex- 
pected by the Jews for their Messiah ; and from this 
point of view was formed the legend of the occurrences 
at the baptism. But, as reverence for Jesus was 
heightened, and men appeared in the Christian Church 
who were acquainted with more exalted messianic 
ideas, this tardy manifestation of messiahship was no 
longer sufficient; His relation with the Holy Spirit 
was referred to His conception; and from this point 

1 Loisy, op. cit., pp. 182-185, 192. 

2M ihid., p. 185; cf. p. 196; above, p. 140. 

3 Id. ihid., pp. 196, 197 ; above, 107, 108. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 485 

of view was founded the tradition of the supernatural 
conception of Jesus." ^ 

Concerning the fact of the virginal conception of 
Jesus, Loisy now upholds frankly the theory that it 
was a late belief, elaborated in hellenistic Christian 
communities towards the end of the first century; it 
was first adopted by the author of the first Gospel; 
then, through his influence it was introduced into the 
primitive documents used by St. Luke who embodied 
it in his Gospel, i. 34-35. This is also the hypothesis 
suggested by Usener, Schmiedel, Harnack and others.- 

While the christological theology was thus pro- 
gressively developing, the dogma of the Saviour's di- 
vinity was, it is assumed, being elaborated. 

No Claim of Sharing the Nature of God. — 
According to Loisy, " Jesus never pretended to be 
the historical manifestation of a being existing in God 
before revealing Himself to men." When He called 
Himself the Son of God, He meant that He was such 
because predestinated to be the Messiah King; and 
because of the interior feeling which united Him to 
God, author of His vocation," but not because of a 
real participation in the divine nature. The only title 
which He distinctly claims for Himself is that of 
Messiah, not that of Son of God. If " He considers 
God as His Father and all men as His children, if 
He looks upon Himself as Son of God in a special and 
unique manner, nevertheless it does not appear that 
He appropriated that quality of Son as one that would 
best sum up the idea He had of Himself and the con- 
ception He wanted others to form of His vocation. 
The sentiment of His Sonship is rather a general char- 
acteristic of these personal ideas than the direct and 
proper expression thereof." ^ 

1 The Life of Jesus, Eng. transl., 1846, vol. i, p. 368 ; cf. 
A New Life of Jesus, vol. ii, p. 39 et seq. 

2 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, 169, 170, 195-198, 290-294, 339; cf. 
above, pp. 123, 124. 

s Id. ibid., pp. 193, 241, 244. 



486 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Therefore we have no conclusive statements of the 
Saviour affirming His own divinity. '* The passages in 
which Jesus speaks of His Father who is in Heaven, 
or simply of His Father, are very numerous, but do 
not contain an explicit definition of His Sonship. The 
passages in which the Father and the Son are men- 
tioned without an epithet of any kind, would be more 
significant indeed, but their authenticity is open to 
question." ^ 

Such is the word : " No one knoweth the Son but 
the Father, neither doth any one know the Father but 
the Son," in which the identification of Christ with 
the eternal Wisdom is implicitly formulated. " Al- 
though the words Father and Son are not merely meta- 
physical expressions, but represent, in this passage, 
God and Christ, the use of the term Son, without addi- 
tion of any sort, is extraordinary in Jesus' mouth ; but 
this is the language of tradition, not the language of 
Jesus, it designates the immortal, we may say, the 
eternal Christ. The reciprocal knowledge of Father 
and Son is not, moreover, represented as a relation 
which began in the course of time and is actually being 
realized; it has the supra-historical character of the 
similar statements to be found in the fourth Gospel; 
it does not express the idea of pre-existence, but it pre- 
supposes it. It is an affirmation interpreting the faith 
of the Christian community." ^ 

Strauss had said in a similar vein : " We may indeed 
conceive how Jesus, by means of the knowledge of 
God as the Father . . . which had sprung within Him 
in consequence of a state of mind in which every form 
of opposition between His own consciousness and the 
consciousness of God had been removed, might feel 
Himself to stand in a quite pecuHar relation to God; 

1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 243, note i. 

2C/. above, pp. 355, 356; Loisy, op. cit., p. 194; Id. ibid., 
vol. i, p. 909; above, pp. 363, 364. 



TESUS MESSIAH AND SON Of GOD 487 

He might feel that no one but He knew God aright, 
namely, as the Father, and that in the case of every 
one else, this knowledge was one which He had been 
the means of imparting to them. But why, then, does 
He add that no one but the Father knows the Son? 
Was then the Son, i. c, He Himself, Jesus, so mys- 
terious a being as to be capable of being known by 
God alone? Not so if He was a human being, but only 
in the case of His being somehow a superhuman being ; 
so that this speech which stands quite isolated in the 
first and third Gospel, refers us to a principle re- 
sembling that of the fourth Gospel, and appears, con- 
sequently, to be an addition intended to exalt the con- 
ception of Jesus above the naturally human, a step 
higher than is elsewhere made in those Gospels." ^ 

There is another passage which Loisy thinks may be 
a later gloss introduced by tradition, namely : *' But of 
that day and hour no man knoweth, neither the angels 
in Heaven, nor the Son, but the Father (alone)." 
" Considering the circumstances in which the Gospel 
was preached, the assertion that, the knowledge of that 
day and hour was the secret of the Father, should have 
been sufficient, and the absolute use of the word Son, 
to designate the Saviour, does not belong to the lan- 
guage of Jesus nor to that of the primitive evangelical 
tradition. Had not this word been added by the Evan- 
gelist, then the whole passage would be open to sus- 
picion." ^ 

The same remark apphes to the parable of the 
Wicked Husbandmen, in which Jesus is represented 
as the Son, sent by God to the tenants of His Vineyard, 
i. e., to the Jews who put Him to death and will there- 
fore be rejected and severely punished. " The narra- 
tive," says Loisy, " is not a parable rightly speaking, 

i Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, author, transl., vol. i, pp. 
527s, 276. 

? Loisy, op. cit., vol ii, p. 483; above, pp. 364, 365. 



488 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

but an allegory completed by a prophecy. It is true 
that the allegory and the prophetical utterance which 
completes it belong to an old tradition, anterior to the 
final redaction of our Gospels ; there is, however, no 
guaranty that they are authentic words of Christ. The 
allegory and the prophecy express the idea which the 
men of apostolic times had formed concerning the 
mission of Christ : He was in their eyes the Son of 
God, sent by the Father, killed by the leaders of the 
Jewish people and glorified in Heaven by His resur- 
rection. In its present traditional form, the allegory 
of the Husbandmen seems to be a fragment of Chris- 
tian apologetics ; it betrays the same tendency, and 
perhaps did it receive its final literary expression at 
the same time as the passages in which the Saviour 
describes the circumstances of His own death and re- 
surrection." ^ 

As regards the account given by St. Matthew of 
Peter's confession at Csesarea, it is likewise to the 
Evangelist that we must ascribe " the antithesis we 
notice between the Son of man, as spoken of by Jesus 
in His question, and the Son of the living God spoken 
of by Simon Peter in his answer. Matthew is anxious 
to intimate that the Son of man is also the Son of God, 
and that the real human nature of the Saviour is com- 
patible with His divine origin: an antithesis which 
throws a good deal of light on Matthew's theology, 
and on his particular way of interpreting the mes- 
sianic title of ' Son of man.' " ^ 

The same interpretation holds good with reference 
to the question which Jesus is supposed to put to the 
Scribes concerning Christ the Son of David. We 
may well believe that the Saviour had contented Him- 
self with insinuating that " the Christ needs not be 
son of David, and that His dignity has a higher 

1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 318, 319; above, pp. 350, 351. 
^ Above, p. 322 ; Loisy, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 3, 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 489 

origin." But " the Evangelists are not content with 
that. Matthew, in this passage as well as in the ac- 
count of Peter's confession, seems to contrast the Son 
of David or Son of Man with the Son of God, who 
is the Lord, who is the Christ, just because He is the 
Son of God. Although he does not expressly use the 
same antithesis, St. Luke seems to have had almost the 
same idea: according to him, Jesus is the Son, not of 
David only, but of God, and the latter filiation sur- 
passes the former." ^ 

To Christian tradition we are also to ascribe the 
scene of the trial before Caiphas, in which we see 
Jesus accused of blasphemy for having declared Him- 
self the Son of God. " According to the two first 
Evangelists, Jesus' answer is considered by the high 
priest as blasphemous." Now, " to say : ' I am the 
Christ,' was not a blasphemy ; to say : ' I am the Son 
of God,' was not a sacrilegious use of the name of 
God, except the speaker, going beyond the moral and 
religious meaning contained in the idea of such filia- 
tion, intended to add to it some metaphysical import, 
more conformable to the spirit of paganism than to 
that of Judaism; except, again, he meant thereby the 
incarnation of a being who was, so to speak, a part of 
God, so that the claim, on the part of Jesus, to such 
a relation with God, could be interpreted as an insult 
to the Divine Majesty. Nothing is easier to explain, 
if the scene has been imagined by the Evangelist or 
is due to christian tradition." ^ 

At any rate, the accusation of blasphemy " is much 
more easily accounted for in the light of Matthew's 
and Mark's theology than in the light of historical veri- 
similitude. For, the members of the Sanhedrin are 
said to have agreed with Caiphas on the question of 
blasphemy, and to have condemned Jesus to death in 

1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. ii, p. z^s \ above, p. 348. 
^Id. ibid., vol. ii, p. 609, 



490 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

conformity with the law of Leviticus. Now, according 
to that law, the blasphemer was to be stoned: and 
Jesus was crucified; he suffered that kind of punish- 
ment because He had been condemned by the Roman 
authorities, in a regular trial, in which the accusa- 
tion brought forward was, not that of blasphemy 
against God because of a claim to a divine privilege, 
but that of pretending to be the Messiah, King of 
Israel." Therefore, the trial before the Sanhedrim 
has been altogether invented by Christian tradition, 
with a view of shifting, from the Roman authorities to 
the Jews, the responsibility of the judgment rendered 
against Jesus. Tradition has made the Sanhedrim 
accountable for a " condemnation which it did not 
really pronounce " ; and " it is perfectly likely that 
the idea of blasphemy as well as the whole theatrical 
scene before Caiphas was invented in view of that 
condemnation." ^ 

As to the formula of baptism in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, its 
value and import are, in the eyes of our critic, rather 
limited.^ 

First of all, " the doctrine of Trinity, i. e., the per- 
fect equality of the three persons in the unity of divine 
nature, is not taught in this passage, for the word 
name is understood before the mention of the Son 
and of the Holy Ghost, and it is not meant that only 
one name, that is to say, only one essence, belongs to 
the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. The 
Father is God who has sent His Son; the Son is the 
Messiah sent by God for the salvation of men ; the 
Holy Ghost is the messianic gift granted by God to 
the faithful, in view of the Son's merits.*' ^ 

On the other hand, it is possible that the clause: 

1 Lolsy, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 609, 610. 

2 Above, p. Z7^. 

3 Loisy, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 751, 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



491 



'* baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost," was not to be found in 
the primitive text of St. Matthew's Gospel, but was 
inserted therein only at the time of its final redaction, 
under the influence of the liturgical usage which is 
recorded in the Didache, and was probably universal 
in the Christian Church at the beginning of the second 
century. Be it as it may, we have not, in the passage 
in question, an authentic utterance of Christ. Should 
we suppress the clause now under discussion, we 
would have, even then, to maintain that the directions 
recorded in the last page of the first Gospel have not, 
historically speaking, been addressed to the Apostles. 
" The whole discourse is an utterance of Christ con- 
sidered as living in the Church ; it is the voice of the 
Christian conscience speaking through the glorified 
Christ. The Evangelist himself gives expression to a 
general view of religious philosophy concerning the 
earthly mission of Christ and that of the Church." ^ 

Jesus, therefore, never proclaimed Himself the Son 
of God, except in this sense that He was the chosen 
one to be endowed with the messianic dignity, and 
that He was united to God by relations of intimate 
affection. Such is Loisy's assumption. 

No Claim of Divine Privileges.— So also He never 
claimed for Himself privileges that cannot belong to 
mere humanity. 

In the way of miracles. He accomplished " but a 
certain number of marvelous cures, which in no degree 
demanded the intervention of divine power, and were 
generally wrought in favor of poor wretches afflicted 
with nervous diseases and cerebral troubles." Never 
did He give to His apostles the power of performing 
miracles spoken of by the first Gospel and inserted in 
the discourse He pronounced when sending His dis- 
ciples to their missionary labors.^ 

1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 749. 

2/c?. ibid., vol. i, pp. 182, 207, 867; above, p. 309, 



492 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Again, He did not pretend to remit sins by His own 
authority, nor did He grant that power to others. The 
narrative of the cure of the man sick with the palsy 
which, in so striking a manner, bears witness to the 
contrary, is somewhat open to question from the point 
of view of authenticity. " The assurance that sins 
are forgiven introduces an argument in favor of Jesus' 
messiahship; but this argument is, as it were, super- 
added to the narrative itself." Hence it is probable 
that we are in the presence of " a later, intentional ad- 
dition, tending to transform an extraordinary cure 
into a theological proof." As a matter of fact, '' the 
idea of remission of sins by Christ fits more naturally 
into the circle of Christian beliefs than into the teach- 
ing of Jesus." The account of the pardon granted to 
the sinful woman in St. Luke presents likewise arti- 
ficial features and must, therefore, be attributed en- 
tirely to the Evangelist. *' For, he reproduces the 
words which Jesus is supposed to have addressed to 
the man sick of the palsy in Capharnaum, and he 
attributes to the bystanders the scandalized feelings 
which the Pharisees manifested on that occasion, in 
order to attribute to Jesus. Himself the pardon of the 
sinful woman." ^ 

The texts of the first Gospel in which we see the 
Saviour granting to Peter or to the Apostles the power 
" to bind or to loose," are supposed to refer indeed to 
the disciplinary authority of the Church, and the power 
of remitting sins, but it is impossible to recognize in 
them an authentic discourse of Jesus ; they simply refer 
to the situation of the Christian communities in the 
time of the Evangelist.^ 

Again, in the reality of history, the Saviour did not 

1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 689 ; above, p. 154. 

2 Matt, xvi, 19; xviii, 18; above, p. 310; Loisy, op. cit., 
vol. ii, pp. 12, 13, 90, 91 ; cf., Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, 
vol. i, p. 2>77 ^t seq. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



493 



place Himself above the temple nor declare that He 
was the Master of the Sabbath. 

The first of these two statements is found in St. 
Matthew alone, and was likely introduced by the Evan- 
gelist. '' For, we may well doubt that Jesus, at any 
period of His ministry, but especially in the beginning, 
ever used such an expression in a public discourse, 
with reference to His personal dignity and authority. 
It would have been looked upon as a blasphemy, since 
the temple, in the speech referred to, stands for the 
service of God. It is probable that the words : " There 
is here a greater than the temple," are an imitation of 
those we read a little farther : " Behold a greater than 
Jonas, a greater than Solomon here." ^ 

The other sentence is to be found in the three Evan- 
gelists, and in St. Mark himself; but it is not an in- 
dispensable part of the narrative, and even may be said 
to be an unnecessary addition to a remark previously 
made " on the Sabbath, which was made for man, not 
man for the Sabbath." " The second remark seems, 
therefore, to be a later addition," the more so that " it 
appears to be pointing to another direction, namely to 
the personal authority of Christ." ^ 

The absolute statement found at the end of the great 
eschatological discourse concerning " the words that 
shall not pass away," has no greater degree of au- 
thenticity. The historical Christ would never have 
said : " Heaven and earth shall pass away, my words 
shall not pass away " ; these words formed probably 
the conclusion of the apocalyptic document which must 
underlie the discourse as it is recorded in our Gospels, 
and " they were supposed to be said by God Himself," 
not by Christ.^ 

iLoisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 510; above, p. 153. 
^Id. ibid., pp. 511, 512; above, ibid. 

3 Mark xiii. 31; Matt. xxiv. 35; Luke xxi. 33; Loisy, 
op. cit., vol. i, p. 99; cf., vol. ii, p. 436. 



494 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Finally, the Saviour never pretended He was des- 
tined to judge one day the living and the dead. " As 
far as we are able to surmise, Jesus did not picture to 
Himself the judgment of God as a great seance in 
which the fate of the whole human race would be dis- 
cussed, and in which every man would hear, in pres- 
ence of all, the verdict that would settle his fate for 
eternity. He conceived it rather as a sort of selection 
which would be made suddenly, in the twinkling of 
an eye, among men living at that time ; the just would 
be, as it were, ravished up to God, transported into the 
place of messianic happiness, changed into immortal 
beings, while the others would be, no doubt, left to 
their chastisement, in a state of death which would not 
exclude pain. The just who were dead would rise 
again at the same time." ^ 

Jesus, therefore, did not, at any time, speak of send- 
ing '' the angels ", " His own angels ", to gather the 
elect, as He is supposed to have said several times, 
according to the Evangelists. Neither did He give 
Himself as the supreme judge of the human race. 
" In the act preliminary to the institution of the King- 
dom, i. e., the selection of the elect, He does not seem 
to have claimed for Himself any special function. God 
alone is the supreme judge of the living and the dead. 
At most, Jesus presents Himself as a witness who 
recognizes, when needed, those who, by their attitude 
towards Him, have deserved eternal reward or eternal 
chastisement." " The final description of the great 
judgment, as it is found in St. Matthew, must have 
been conceived by the Evangelist himself." ^ 

Strauss has formulated the problem in pretty much 
the same terms, without reaching, however, such a 
completely negative conclusion : " Jesus speaks in the 

1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 237. 

2 Above, p. 307; Loisy, op. cit., p. 779; vol. ii, pp. 21-36, 
431; vol. i, pp. 241, 242; Matt. XXV. 31-46; above, p. 311; 
Loisy, op. cit., p. 134. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 495 

Gospels ... of His own second coming . . . when 
He will appear in the clouds of heaven, in divine glory, 
and accompanied by angels to awake the dead, to judge 
the quick and the dead, and to open His Kingdom, 
the Kingdom of God or Heaven. Here we stand face 
to face with a decisive point. . . . For us, Jesus has 
either no existence at all, or exists only as a human 
being ; to a human being no such thing as He here pro- 
phesied of Himself could happen, li He did prophesy 
it of Himself and expect it Himself, He is for us noth- 
ing but a fanatic. . . . There is only a trifling differ- 
ence between this and the pretended utterances of 
Jesus about His pre-existence . . . : He who expects 
to come again after His death, as no human being has 
ever done, is, in our opinion, not exactly a madman, 
because, in reference to the future, imagination is 
more possible, but still an arrant enthusiast." Again : 
." The expectation of such a thing on one's behalf is 
something quite different from a general expectation 
of it, and he who expects it of himself and for him- 
self will not only appear to us in the light of a fanatic, 
but we see also an unallowable self -exaltation in a 
man's (and it is only of a human being that we are 
everywhere speaking) so putting himself above every 
one else as to contrast himself with them as their 
future judge. . . ." '' If, indeed, Jesus w^as convinced 
that He was the Messiah, and referred the prophecy 
in Daniel to the Messiah, He must have expected, in 
accordance with it, some time or other to come with 
the clouds of Heaven. ... It might well be that 
together with the conception of Jehovah as the sole 
judge of all, that of the transference of the office to 
the Messiah, as His representative, might have been 
in existence even before the time of Jesus, and only 
have been adopted by Him as an appendage to the 
conception of the Messiah. He had preached the word 
of God to mankind, and according to that word they 
were to be judged. If this was so, the natural infer- 



496 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ence was that the preacher Himself would have a 
principal part in that judgment to come." ^ 

Conclusion. — To sum up Loisy's teaching: Jesus in 
no way pretended to rise above mere humanity: He 
said He was the Son of God, but did not thereby put 
Himself personally on a level with God, nor did He 
really claim powers which belong to God alone. 

But, after the Saviour's death, when people pic- 
tured Him to themselves as sitting at the right hand of 
God, in the midst of glory, the behef in His divinity 
came slowly into existence. 

" Paul already conceives a Christ existing previous 
to His earthly mission, a superior man, a heavenly 
man, a divine man, who becomes the historical Mes- 
siah in the person of Jesus ; in the Epistle to the Colos- 
sians, this Christ plays a part in the foundation of the 
world; He is not only the antitype of Adam, He is 
the mediator between God and the world, just as be- 
tween God and man: He is Creator just as well as 
Redeemer. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, we find, 
closely associated, the idea of the only Son, Word of 
Wisdom and power, by whom the world was made, 
and the idea of Christ, the High Priest, who recon- 
ciles with God the whole human race. The identifica- 
tion of Jesus with the Logos of Philo was now but a 
matter of time and a question of words : we find it 
realized in the Apocalypse and in the fourth Gospel." ^ 

" We should not, however, look upon the elaboration 
of Christian thought as an attempt to disfigure history 
for the sake of abstract opinions. It is the opinions 
themselves that are carried along in the progress of 
faith. Paul and the other theologians of the primitive 
period are unacquainted with scientific research or 

1 Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, vol. i, pp. 322, 331-332. 

2 I Cor. XV. 44-49; 2 Cor. viii. 9; Gal. iv. 4; Phil. ii. 8; Col. 
i. 15-20; ii. 3, 9; Hebr. i. 1-4; iv. 14; v. 10; vii., viii., ix., 
X. 18; Ap. xix. 13; Joan. i. 1-18; Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 194; 
above, p. 388 et seq. 



JESUS MESSIAH AXD SON OF GOD 



497 



even philosophical reflection ; their theories are mere 
visions. . . . Owing to the state of exaltation in which 
the first Christians lived, all this evolution whose com- 
plexity baffles all attempts of an analysis, worked itself 
out, spontaneously and rapidly, in that subconscious 
region of the soul in which are elaborated the dreams 
of all men, the hallucinations of some, and the intui- 
tions of genius. It is hardly possible to doubt that 
certain utterances attributed to Christ were heard by 
some enthusiasts in the rapture of their ecstatic prayer. 
The same remark applies to certain narratives of mir- 
acles, and, in a way, to all of them, since the invol- 
untary idealization of past memories in the imagination 
of a believer is a sort of vision." ^ 

Such is the present position of Loisy regarding the 
divinity of Christ. He himself has taken the trouble 
of remarking that his attitude is essentially the same 
as before : " In general," he says, " I have in my last 
writings followed the same lines as in the preceding 
ones. My chief endeavor has been to determine the 
historical position of the questions at hand, and to 
show, consequently, the necessity of modifying, more 
or less, the traditional views. As regards the divinity 
of Jesus-Christ, I have said nothing which does not 
agree with the ideas expressed in the fourth letter 
found in Aiitour d'lin petit lizre," ^ 

We see thereby how far advanced were our critic's 
ideas, even in those days.^ 

However he adds: " If I had to discuss that subject 
again, I would, with still greater insistence, call the 
readers' attention upon the inadequacy of the dog- 
matic formula, upon the ambiguity of the idea of per- 

1 Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, pp 194, 195 ; cf. Strauss, A Neiv 
Life, vol. i, p. 412 et seq. 

^ Loisy, Quelques Lettres sur des Questions Actuelles, publ. 
by the author, 1908, p. 252; letter Ixii, Febr. 17, 1908, to 
Baron Von Hiigel. 

3 Above, pp. 287-306. 

32 



498 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

sonality when we try to apply it, in the same sense, 
to both God and man; finally, upon the partly sym- 
bolical character of the theological data: by which I 
mean that the general relations of mankind with God 
are prefigured in the special relations which are said 
to exist between God and Christ." ^ 

And here is the explanation now given by Loisy 
of his position : " It seems to me, he says, that the 
dogma of Christ's divinity has never been and is not, 
even now, anything more than a symbol, more or less 
perfect, destined to signify the relations existing be- 
tween God and mankind personified in Jesus. The 
contradiction implied in the theological formula re- 
ferring to the God-man, corresponds to the antinomy 
which has proved the stumbling-block of philosophical 
speculation, namely : God is nothing if He is not 
everything ; and yet, the world and man cannot be said 
simply to be God : they exist in Him, yet really dis- 
tinct from Him. None the less, every conscious indi- 
vidual may be represented either as the living con- 
sciousness of God in the world through a sort of an 
Incarnation of God in man, or, in turn, as the living 
consciousness of the world subsisting in God, as though 
the world were all summed-up in man. It is the whole 
human race that is a daughter of God, proceeds from 
Him, is immanent in Him and in which He is imma- 
nent, through that circumincession spoken of by theo- 
logians with regard to the divine Trinity. Jesus was 
deeply conscious of this relation which mankind, we. 
may say, has for the first time perceived in Him and 
through Him with such an intensity of light. Chris- 
tian speculation got hold of the christological idea, 
and, just as the Messiah of Israel was, in a certain 
sense, the religious personification of the nation, so 
also Jesus Christ became the divine personification of 
mankind." ^ 

1 Loisy, loc. cit. 

2 Loisy, Quelques Lettres, pp. 149, 150; letter xliv, June 
17, 1907, to Mr. I'Abbe X, cure. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



499 



This is, as far as ideas and their expression are 
concerned, the very theory of Strauss and Renan. So 
that our so-called Catholic critic was simply trying to 
induce the Church to reform her dogma after the most 
genuine principles of rationalistic philosophy. The 
following quotation from Strauss' Life of Jesus will 
amply suffice to prove it : *' This is the key to the 
whole of Christology that, as subject of the predicate 
which the Church assigns to Christ, we place, instead 
of an individual, an idea ; but an idea which has an ex- 
istence in reality, not in the mind only. In an indi- 
vidual, a God-man, the properties and functions which 
the Church ascribes to Christ contradict themselves; 
in the idea of the race, they perfectly agree. Human- 
ity is the union of the two natures — God become man, 
the infinite manifesting itself in the finite, and the 
finite spirit remembering its infinitude; it is the child 
of the visible Mother and the invisible Father, Nature 
and Spirit; it is the worker of miracles, in so far as 
in the course of human history, the Spirit more and 
more completely subjugates nature, both within and 
around man, until it lies before him as the inert matter 
on which he exercises his active power. It is the sin- 
less existence, for the course of its development is a 
blameless one ; pollution cleaves to the individual only, 
and does not touch the race or its history. It is hu- 
manity that dies, rises and ascends to heaven, for from 
the negation of its phenomenal life there ever proceeds 
a higher spiritual Hfe; from the suppression of its 
mortality as a personal, national, and terrestrial spirit, 
arises its union with the infinite spirit of the heavens. 
By faith in this Christ, especially in his death and 
resurrection, man is justified before God : that is, by 
the kindling within him of the idea of Humanity, the 
individual man participates in the divinely human life 
of the species.'.' ^ 

1 Strauss. Life of Jesus, vol. iii, pp. 437, 438 ; cf. A New 
Life, vol. ii, pp. 435-439- 



500 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF LOISY's THEORIES. 

What should we think of these diverse theories from 
the point of view of an impartial exegesis? 

Noteworthy Admissions. — First of all, thanks 
are due to Loisy for having explicitly rejected, because 
it renders inexplicable the origin of Christianity, the 
opinion which maintains that Jesus never believed or 
proclaimed He w^as the Messiah ; also for having dis- 
carded, as being groundless and practically unten- 
able, the hypotheses which represent the Savior as 
sharing, in the beginning of his career, the prejudices 
of the Jews regarding the temporal character of 
the Messiah's mission. We do not find in the 
Gospels any serious foundation for the evolutionary 
theories which claim to draw up a picture of the 
messianic consciousness of Jesus in the process of 
its development. Such a verdict is worth remem- 
bering. It had been, long before, the verdict of Strauss 
himself : *' Nowhere in our evangelical narratives is 
there a trace of Jesus having sought to form a political 
party. ... If we ask how this harmonious mental 
constitution had come to exist in Jesus, there is no- 
where in the accounts of his life that lie before us any 
intimation of severe mental struggles from which it 
proceeded. It is indeed well known that . . . those 
accounts embrace only the short period of His public 
ministry, and represent Him moreover from a point 
of view excluding all human peccability; hence one 
might suppose that that period of cheerful unity with 
himself might have been preceded by another of 
gloomy struggle and also of numerous deviations from 
the right way. But, unless all analogies deceive us, 
traces of this must have been discoverable in His 
later life, regarding which we are not without informa- 
tion. In all those natures which were not purified 
until they had gone through struggles and violent dis- 
ruption (think only of a Paul, an Augustin, and a 
Luther), the shadowy colors of this exist forever, 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



501 



and something harsh, severe and gloomy clings to them 
all their lives; but of this in Jesus no trace is found. 
Jesus appears as a beautiful nature from the first, 
which had only to develop itself out of itself, to be- 
come more clearly conscious of itself, ever firmer in 
itself, but not to change and begin a new Hfe." ^ 

Questionable Theories. — More questionable is 
the explanation which Loisy gives of Jesus' reserve 
in manifesting His messianic character. Our critic 
grants that the reason of this reserve is to be 
sought neither in ignorance nor in uncertainty, on 
the Savior's part, concerning His own vocation. This 
is the most important point and, hence, such a con- 
cession must be duly noted. But Loisy claims that 
he can successfully account for that discretion by 
the fact that Jesus believed He was only destined 
to be endowed with the messianic dignity at som.e 
distant date, and that, for the present. He looked 
upon Himself as being only a future Messiah. Now, 
such an explanation is wholly inadequate. For, in 
presence of His disciples from the time of the episode 
at Csesarea, and before Pilate at the time of His trial, 
Jesus confesses Himself to be the Christ, the King of 
the Jews. But, if the fact that He was not yet ex- 
ercising the full and definitive functions pertaining 
to His role did not prevent the Saviour, during that 
period of His ministry, from proclaiming Himself 
the Christ, why should He have hesitated to manifest 
Himself as such before, since we take for granted 
that His intimate consciousness had not changed since 
the beginning of His public career? We are con- 
fronted by this alternative : if He really intended not 
to claim the messianic dignity before the striking 
manifestation of the Kingdom, then we are at a loss 
to account for His admissions, made with no restric- 
tion whatever, at Csesarea and afterwards ; if, on the 

1 Strauss. A Nezv Life of Christ, vol. i, pp. 282-283 ; cf. 
Harnack, cited above, pp. 232, 233, 259. 



502 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



Other hand, His poHcy of expectancy was not really 
decided upon in His mind, then we are not warranted 
in giving it as a motive of His discretion. 

As a matter of fact, the Gospel texts reveal to us 
other motives which, precisely, have the best chances 
to be the true ones, and agree with the most certain 
facts of history. Jesus had to take into account the 
state of mind of the multitudes and of His own dis- 
ciples. The mission which He had in view was purely 
spiritual and moral : the Kingdom of God which He 
intended to establish was exclusively of the religious 
order. And yet, the word " Messiah " aroused in the 
souls of men a whole world of national and earthly 
ambitions. Hence, before He could openly proclaim 
Himself the Messiah, Jesus had, first of all, to work 
out a deep change in the ideas of those around Him, 
to convince His disciples of His true character, but 
rather by His works and by progressive declarations 
than by an overt and positive proclamation.^ 

On this point we may well accept the judgment of 
Strauss : nobody will suspect him of partiality in our 
favor : " It is conceivable that Jesus, though already 
fully convinced of His own Messiahship, did never- 
theless, in reference to others, select, to designate Him- 
self, an expression not yet stamped as a title of the 
Messiah, in order not to force anything from without 
upon His disciples and the people, but to allow the con- 
viction that He was the Messiah to arise spontaneously 
within them ; hence also His visible rejoicing when He 
had got so far, at least with His nearest friends, that 
He saw the germ of the right view of His character 
springing up in the mind of one of them." ^ 

The rest of Loisy's assertions refer to Jesus' illu- 
sions concerning the realization of the messianic King- 
dom before His death, His anticipated messianic glori- 
fication and consecration, during His earthly career, 

1 Above, pp. 146-150. 

2 Strauss, A New Life, vol. i, p. 310, 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



503 



finally concerning the fact that his messianic con- 
sciousness was posterior to the consciousness of His 
filial relations with God. But, the statements of our 
critic on these various points constitute a collection of 
mere hypotheses grounded upon rationalistic pre- 
judices and contradicted by the precise data of our 
documents. 

Mere Hypotheses. — Loisy, for instance, main- 
tains that Jesus believed in the imminent coming 
of the Kingdom and did not foresee that He would 
have to suffer and die before its realization. This 
hypothesis closely resembles the one imagined by 
Reimarus in the eighteenth century; the work of 
the old German critic was first partly published by 
Lessing in 1774, under the title : " Fragments from 
an Unknown Man '* ; in the last Fragment, published 
in 1778, it is asserted that Jesus' aim was to re- 
establish the Kingdom of David and Solomon. All 
that which, in the Gospels, does not agree with this 
plan, has been invented by the Apostles, who have 
thus tried to lessen the failure of their Master. Jesus 
had an accomplice in the person of John the Baptist; 
they had secretly agreed that they would praise and 
commend each other. The day chosen for the insur- 
rection destined to bring back to life the ancient Jew- 
ish Kingdom was Easter day; but the scenes which 
took place in Jerusalem when Jesus entered trium- 
phantly in the city, caused the complete collapse of 
the plans ; for, the Master's revolutionary triumph 
stirred up the multitude against the legitimate authori- 
ties; moreover, he violated the majesty of the Temple 
by an act of unheard-of audacity, as though He was 
persuaded He could do anything He pleased. Being 
arrested by the leaders of His own people, He found a 
cross instead of a crown. This denouement He had 
not foreseen, and His disappointment and despair 
manifested themselves with a strange bitterness at His 
last moments; H? repented while dying, and on the 



504 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

instrument of His death, He declared He was aban- 
doned by God. His disciples, after His death, gave a 
spiritual turn to his statements on the Kingdom of 
God and an ideal setting to His life and doctrine." ^ 
That Loisy practically agrees with Reimarus is shown 
by a remark we borrow from an article in the Revue 
d'histoire et de litterature religieuse; reviewing the 
work of A. Schweitzer, Von Reimarus zu Wrede, he 
says significantly : " Schweitzer shows very clearly that 
Reimarus' work betrays a remarkable insight." 

The only difference between Loisy and Reimarus 
is that, in the eyes of the old German critic, the King- 
dom which Jesus purposed to re-establish while going 
to Jerusalem for the Passover, was the temporal King- 
dom of David, while Loisy, together with Strauss, 
maintains that the Saviour was only thinking of a sud- 
den catastrophe which was to upset the world and to 
establish therein the conditions of a new life, favorable 
to the eternal reign of God and of His elect. 

But such an opinion can be maintained only by one 
who makes from among the evangelical documents a 
very special and limited selection, and gives of the 
texts thus set apart an arbitrary and exaggerated in- 
terpretation. 

Jesus' acceptance of the triumphal reception ten- 
dered Him by the people of Jerusalem can be easily 
accounted for otherwise than by His firm belief in 
the imminent coming of the Kingdom. The Saviour 
knows that His last hour is near at hand; the Jewish 
leaders are about to deliver Him into the hands of the 
Roman authorities; the multitude which appears now 
so sympathetic will soon clamor for His crucifixion. 
The Passion is imminent with its retinue of shameful 
outrages, with death upon the cross, marking the utter 
ruin of the messianic dream. So that the Saviour may 
well now accept the ovation which He had up to this 

1 F. Vigouroux, Les livres saints et la critique .... 
3d edit, 1890, vol, ii, p. 418. 



lESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 505 

time so carefully avoided. And then, spontaneously, 
He accepts that ephemeral glorification, as an antici- 
pated protest against the scandalous events about to 
happen. Such conduct on the Saviour's part is cer- 
tainly easy to understand. 

Jesus affects to represent the coming of the King- 
dom as being near at hand: but this does not neces- 
sarily mean it will come in an immediate future; the 
language of the Saviour is easy enough to understand 
if, as a matter of fact, the Kingdom is to be realized 
in its initial, earthly phase, as a preparation for its 
final consummation, and if, on the other hand, Jesus 
wants to show that the supreme advent of the Son of 
man is prefigured, and in a certain sense anticipated, 
in the catastrophe which threatens Jerusalem.^ 

None of the texts, none of the facts, referred to, 
really proves that Jesus considered the realization of 
the eschatological Kingdom as being imminent: the 
complete and definitive interpretation of these texts 
and facts must be subordinated to the meaning of the 
clearest data furnished by the Gospels. Now, it is 
certain that the Gospels contain a mass of facts which 
are at absolute variance with the hypothesis main- 
tained by Loisy. 

Facts against Loisy's Theories. — First of all, 
there are all the texts in which is announced the event 
spoken of by Jesus under the image of the Kingdom 
of God, and seemingly identical with the Palestinian 
catastrophe which was to inaugurate the social reign 
of Christ : it shall happen before the end of the present 
generation, at a time when only a few of the Saviour's 
hearers shall survive.^ 

Again, there are the numerous passages in which 
Jesus expressly warns His disciples not to be surprised 
if there is a delay in the coming of the Kingdom, and 
to be always ready, because it shall come unex- 
pectedly.^ 

1 Above, p. 453 cf seq. 2 Above, p. 443 ef seq., p. 453 et seq. 

3 Above, p. 441 et seq. 



5o6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Then, we have the different parables intended to 
teach us how Christian hfe must progress slowly in 
the hearts of men, how the preaching of the Gospel 
is to spread little by little in the world. Nay more, 
in the Saviour's intention, the Gospel is to go beyond 
the borders of Palestine, to be communicated to the 
Gentiles, and finally spread over the whole universe.^ 

''In these passages (Matt. xi. 12; Luke xvi. 16; Matt, 
xii. 28)," says Strauss himself, ''the Kingdom is repre- 
sented as that which is already here present, that has 
been founded and opened by Jesus during His life 
on earth. If, moreover, we compare the parables of 
the grain of mustard-seed, and particularly of the 
leaven, where the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth is 
compared with the gradual leavening of a mass of 
dough, then Jesus appears to have contemplated a 
perfectly natural and gradual development of the 
Kingdom. One view does not quite exclude the other 
. . . an invisible presence of Jesus must be distin- 
guished from His visible second coming, as, in the 
parable of the tares, the presence of the Kingdom of 
God in an imperfect condition of preparation and de- 
velopment, must be distinguished from its perfect re- 
alization in the future." ^ 

The Master, moreover, does not fail to foretell to 
His Apostles the trials, the persecutions, the sacrifices 
implied in such a work of universal evangelization: 
" He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that shall 
lose his Hfe for me shall find it." Loisy is of the opin- 
ion that this sentence is incontestably authentic, and 
he himself thus comments on it : " He who shall lose 
his life, that is to say, he who shall be put to death 
for the sake of the Gospel, shall truly find it, because 
he shall thus attain a blessed Hfe in the Kingdom of 
Heaven." ^ 

i Above, pp. 436, 437. 

2 A New Life of Jesus, vol. i, p. 329, 330. 

•^ Loisy, op. cit., vol, i, p. 896. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



507 



In another passage, Jesus gives His disciples to 
understand that they must consider themselves as men 
condemned to death, carrying their cross behind Him ; 
they must expect to be hated, persecuted, ill-treated, 
put to death. ^ 

All these statements, which hold such an important 
place in the Gospels, are incompatible with the hy- 
pothesis according to which the Saviour was persuaded 
of the imminent coming of the Kingdom. Moreover, 
is not such a hypothesis contradicted by the very 
manner in which Jesus constantly speaks of His com- 
ing or of the Parousia ? 

" You shall not finish all the cities of Israel till the 
Son of man come." " He that shall be ashamed of 
me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful gen- 
eration, the Son of man also will be ashamed of him 
when He shall come in the glory of His Father with 
the holy angels." " There are some of them that stand 
here who shall not taste death till they see the King- 
dom of God coming in power." " Be you also ready; 
for at what hour you think not, the Son of man will 
come." Noah's contemporaries were caught unaware 
by the deluge : " so shall also be the coming of the 
Son of man." The Son of man is Hke unto a prince 
" who went into a far country to receive for himself 
a Kingdom and to return " ; he may be compared to 
the bridegroom who went to receive the bride and for 
whose return his servants are watching, that they may 
open to him immediately, or whose coming the vir- 
gins are awaiting, in order to accompany him to the 
wedding banquet; again, he may be likened to a 
master who, going into a far country, delivered his 
goods to his servants, and who comes back after a long 
time and reckons with them. On that last day, the 
Son of man shall be seen " coming in the clouds, with 

1 Mark viii. 34; Matt, xvi. 24; Luke ix. 23; Matt, x. 38; 
Luke xiv. 27. 



5o8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

great power and glory." He shall be seen " sitting 
on the right hand of the power of God, and coming 
with the clouds of Heaven." " When the Son of man 
shall come in His majesty and all the angels with Him, 
then shall He sit upon the seat of His majesty and all 
the nations shall be gathered together before Him." ^ 

Such a way of speaking, usual with the Saviour, 
cannot be reasonably understood, except we admit 
that He had in His mind that He must, first of all, 
leave this world, go to His Father, and take possession 
of His Heavenly Kingdom in order to return in the 
day of His final advent. Strauss admits it unhesi- 
tatingly : " Jesus, he says, separated from the present, 
as a time of preparation, a future, as that of perfec- 
tion; from this life, as a period of service, a fife to 
come, as that of recompense ; and with the beginning 
of this perfection he connected a change in the world 
to be brought about by God. This appears in all the 
Gospels in the most decided manner, if these are to 
be supposed to have any historical validity whatever." ^ 

Thus we are led to conclude that not only the 
Master was not mistaken about His messianic destiny, 
but that He also positively foresaw His disappearance 
from among His own and His death. 

As a matter of fact, the Gospels abound in testi- 
monies to that effect. In the very beginning of His 
ministry, Jesus mysteriously gives His disciples to 
understand that the " bridegroom shall be taken away 
from his friends," and this sentence is connected with 
an episode whose authenticity is not doubtful in the 
least. The exhortation which, on another occasion, 

1 Matt. X. 23 ; Mark viii. 38 ; Matt. xvi. 27 ; Luke ix. 26 ; 
Mark viii. 39; Matt. xvi. 28; Luke ix. 27; Luke xii. 40; Malt, 
xxiv. 44; Matt. xxiv. 2>7 \ Luke xvii. 30; Luke xix. 12, 13, 15; 
xii. 36 et seq.; Matt xxv. i, 6, 10, 14, 19; Mark xiii. 26; 
Matt. xxiv. 30; Luke xxi. 27; Mark xiv. 62; Matt. xxvi. 64; 
Luke xxii. 69; Matt. xxv. 31. 

2 Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, vol. i, p. 330. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 509 

He addresses to them, to carry their cross after Him, 
" has no meaning, Loisy thinks, except in connection 
with the Passion, and except we bear in mind the cir- 
cumstances of Jesus' death." Now, this exhortation 
is closely connected with the sentence concerning the 
life to be saved or to be lost, which, according to the 
same critic, is undoubtedly authentic/ 

Moreover, this last sentence does not refer to the 
disciples alone. Loisy is obliged to admit it : " Jesus 
had said for Himself as well as for His disciples : 
' Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whoso- 
ever shall lose his life shall save it.' " Now, it is ar- 
bitrary to claim that Jesus thereby considered the mere 
possibility of being put to death for the sake of the 
Kingdom. And, above all, how could we account for 
the fact that He considered that eventuality so seriously 
as to refer to it publicly, in the explicit terms men- 
tioned above, if He had been so deeply convinced, as 
critics want Him to be, of the imminent manifestation 
of the Kingdom, at the time of His journey to Jeru- 
salem ? 

Finally, at Csesarea Philippi, in Galilee, on the way 
to Jerusalem, at the banquet in which He was 
anointed, in the parable of the wicked Husbandmen, 
at the last Supper, everywhere does the Master appear 
fully conscious of His approaching death.^ 

How is it possible to set aside such a mass of tes- 
timonies, namely, those referring to the delay of the 
last Advent, and those who bear out Jesus' prevision 
of His suffering destiny? Loisy eliminates them all 
systematically, because compelled by the necessity of 
giving a basis to his preconceived hypothesis. 

Radical Views on the Gospels' Historicity. — 
True it is that in his recent work, the two tableaux 

1 Above, pp. 240, 241 ; Loisy, op. cif., vol. i, p. 895 ; above, 
p. 506. 

2Loisy, op. cit., vol. i, p. 215 ; cf. The Gospel and the Church, 
p. 20; quoted above, p. 242. 



5io CHRIST AND TUn GOSPEL 

entitled *' The Career of Jesus " and *' The Teaching 
of Jesus " are prefaced by a long study on each of the 
three synoptic Gospels, and on the character and de- 
velopment of evangelical tradition/ in which the 
author is supposed to examine in the most impartial 
spirit the guarantees of authenticity offered by the 
Gospels: the distinction which he makes between the 
authentic primitive data and the later additions due 
to the pen of the final compiler, the considerations he 
makes on the manner in which tradition has worked 
upon and transformed history, seem all drawn from 
an impartial study of the documents ; consequently, his 
general views on the ministry and teaching of the 
Saviour appear to be but the conclusion of a scientific 
criticism of the texts. But this is a mere illusion. 
One w^ho follows attentively Loisy's analysis of the 
evangelical writings, and weighs carefully the reasons 
for which this statement is declared to be authentic 
and that one to have been invented by the compilers 
or by tradition — comes to the conclusion that the dis- 
tinctions are the outcome of a systematic and partisan 
spirit. 

We may remark that, in spite of contrary appear- 
ances, the judgments of Loisy on the historicity of 
the Gospel narratives, are independent from the ques- 
tion of the relations existing between the three synop- 
tic Gospels. The proof is that, with the exception 
of a few details, his conclusions are, from beginning 
to end, identical with those of Strauss. And yet, while 
Strauss adopted the hypothesis of Griesbach, accord- 
ing to which Luke and Mark were dependent upon 
Matthew, Loisy adopts the theory, more current now- 
adays, which maintains that Mark was the chief source 
of the two others. Moreover, his conclusions do not 
rest at all upon a previous examination of the guar- 
antees of historicity which the Gospels are supposed 

1 Op. cit., vol. i, pp. 84-174, 175-202, 203-224, 225-253. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 511 

to owe to their origin. In his Synoptic Gospels, vol. 
i, p. 65, Loisy praises Strauss for having " subordi- 
nated the critical examination of the Gospel records 
to the critical examination of the evangelical history. 
For, if the narratives concerning Christ v^ere myths, 
they could not come from eye-v^itnesses or v^ell-in- 
formed chroniclers, and therefore the question of com- 
position had but a secondary importance." Following 
the example of the Tiibingen Doctor, Loisy begins 
with an examination of the evangelical records from 
the rationalistic point of view, and finding them full 
of supernatural features, he proclaims them legendary 
and concludes that they do not come from the par- 
ticularly well-informed authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
pointed out by tradition. This is exactly the reverse 
of a truly critical examination ; in good logic, the au- 
thenticity of the books must be inquired into before 
their historical value is examined. As Renan himself 
justly said : " At what time, by what hands, in what 
conditions were the Gospels written? This is the 
capital question upon which depends the opinion we 
must form of their credibility." ^ 

The Question of the Parousia.— To return to 
the question of the Parousia: our critic centres his 
attention upon the passages in which Jesus seems to 
announce the coming of the Kingdom as being im- 
minent; these passages, interpreted in the strictest 
manner, are carefully set forth and brought into 
prominence; Jesus' illusions, supposedly proved by 
these texts, are asserted as an absolute, intangible 
truth,; this is, of course, logically demanded by Loisy's 
philosophical system, according to which Jesus' science 
must be purely natural, and His messiahship chimer- 
ical. All the portions of our texts which square with 
those so-called facts, thus boldly asserted, are pro- 
claimed genuine; all that which does not fit into the 

'^Vie de Jesus, 13th ed., p. xlviii; cf. Les theories de Mr. 
Loisy, Expose, 1908, pp. 219-226. 



512 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



system is declared to be a later addition, and therefore 
unhesitatingly eliminated. It is the most arbitrary and 
intolerant method, called upon to foster the cause of 
the most rationalistic criticism/ • 

Now, such a method must be rejected both on ac- 
count of its arbitrary character and of the violence it 
does to documents whose historical value seems so 
strongly established, when they are studied without 
prejudice. It is not in a few isolated and doubtful 
texts that Jesus' foreknowledge of His death and of 
the Kingdom's delay is attested: it is to be found in 
every one of our four Gospels, it permeates every page 
of them, and in many a passage it offers particularly 
significant proofs of authenticity. 

We have seen, in particular, how more definite an- 
nouncements of Christ's passion are repeated in a sort 
of gradation after St. Peter's confession, and coun- 
terbalance, as it were, the more striking manifesta- 
tions of Jesus' dignity. From the point of view of 
history, nothing is easier to understand, but from the 
point of view of the later compilation, nothing is more 
unlikely than this sort of compensation by which the 
shining eclat of the Saviour's messiahship is dis- 
creetly overshadowed by the dark vision of His cru- 
cifixion, pointed out by Himself. The authenticity of 
the prediction made at Csesarea receives a very special 
confirmation from the spontaneous protest which it 
draws from St. Peter, and from the severe rebuke 
with which this same protest is met by Jesus. " There 
is every probability, remarks Strauss, in favor of the 
fact that the first revelation of this kind which Jesus 
made to His disciples was most displeasing and re- 
pulsive to them. . . . For, they shared the common 
conception of the Messiah, which, up to this time, 
Jesus had attempted rather to modify indirectly and 
virtually than to combat expressly; and to this con- 

^C/. Theories de Mr. Loisy, p. 243 et seq. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



513 



ception, sufferings and the death of a criminal formed 
the most glaring contrast ... so that the inevitable 
result (viz. Jesus' death) might have come upon them 
before they had familiarized themselves with the 
thought of it.'' Finally we find no less significant 
guarantees of truthfulness in the remarks referring 
to the surprise, the sadness, the mysterious fear with 
which other predictions inspire the Apostles.^ 

It seems by far more logical, or, let us say it plainly, 
more critical, to take into account the ensemble of the 
characteristic features found in our writings, including 
all these texts, so numerous and whose genuineness is 
so well established, than to base an opinion upon a 
category of passages skilfully set apart from the rest. 
In the name of the Gospels, in the name of history^ we 
have a right to affirm that the Saviour did not, con- 
cerning His immediate messianic destiny, labor under 
the delusion attributed to Him. 

The Messianic Consecration. — According to 
Loisy, the primitive Christian tradition connected the 
messianic consecration of Jesus with His resurrec- 
tion; soon after, the glory of the Messiah was, by 
anticipation, traced back to His earthly career; this 
was done by multiplying His declarations concerning 
His quality of Christ and by turning His miracles 
into evidences of His dignity ; at the same time tradi- 
tion is supposed to have put the messianic consecra- 
tion in immediate connection with the baptism that 
marked the beginning of the Saviour's career, and 
finally to have traced it back to the very origin of 
His Hfe. 

This theory offers, indeed, a seducing appearance; 
it presents itself as a system not only very simple but 
also well balanced and perfectly consistent. But we 

1 Above, pp. 239, 243 ; Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, vol, i, 
pp. 320, 321. 

33 



514 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

must confess that the system is very arbitrary and 
built up without regard to the texts. 

Our critic admits that, in the episode at Caesarea, 
Jesus was spontaneously hailed as Messiah by Simon 
Peter; now, the assurance with which the chief of the 
Apostles expresses the conviction of the Twelve at 
that time can be accounted for only if we admit that 
the Saviour had, previously to this incident, manifested 
His messianic character in a discreet but sufficiently 
significant manner. Was there not a real need of 
quite decisive revelations, in order to overcome com- 
pletely the very serious objection which the Jews had 
against recognizing God's Messiah in a man whose 
claims and conduct were giving the lie to all their ex- 
pectations? If Jesus Himself provoked His own to 
a profession of faith, it must be because He was con- 
scious of having done enough to beget it and bring it 
to maturity in their hearts. Loisy has made, in that 
regard, very significant admissions : *' Jesus also, he 
says, announced that the Kingdom of God was near 
at hand; but His hearers must have felt, from the 
very beginning, that He was attributing to Himself, 
in that Advent, an important place which John did 
not claim ;" . . . " During those days of common and 
intimate life, the disciples, no doubt, got a deeper in- 
sight into Jesus' true character and attached them- 
selves more and more to His person. ... It is thus 
that the role which was to be His in the supreme 
manifestation appeared more clearly to the eyes of the 
Twelve, and that they felt disposed to hail Him as 
Christ, without His having expressly declared that 
He was the Messiah." ^ 

The things being so, it is easy to understand that, 
from the very beginning of His ministry, He did not 
hesitate to allude to His quality of Messiah, as the 
Gospels testify He did, especially by revealing His 

'^Les Evang. Synopt., vol. i, p. 207. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 515 

unique relations with God; easy also to understand 
that He habitually turned His miracles into as many 
implicit arguments in favor of His messianic charac- 
ter. Again we can understand why it pleased Him 
to designate Himself by the name of Son of man, 
which conveyed a mysteriously messianic meaning, 
while, at the same time, He proclaimed Himself the 
Son of God by excellence. Nay more, we should not 
be surprised to see that, here and there, more explicit 
recognitions of His messianic quality are interwoven 
in the rest of His more discreet manifestations : these 
recognitions are destined, as it were, to stimulate the 
hearers' curiosity, to call more vividly upon the mes- 
sianic idea the attention of minds which the humble 
conditions of Jesus' ministry were certainly calculated 
to baffle. The declarations of those possessed by the 
devil, which were indeed very discreet and checked 
by Jesus as soon as permitted, form a part of that 
programme of progressive messianic pedagogy which 
has every chance to agree with the exact data of his- 
tory. " Jesus, remarks Strauss, might feel Himself 
induced to choose this method the more He must have 
feared, by declaring Himself from the first to be the 
Messiah, to excite all those political hopes of the na- 
tion which ran directly counter to that sense in which 
alone He thought of being the Messiah." ^ 

Did christian tradition at first represent Jesus as 
Messiah consecrated by His resurrection? This is not 
really intimated by the texts. The Saviour had pro- 
claimed Himself Messiah during His hfe and He had 
been recognized as such. Then, we are facing this al- 
ternative : people thought that this dignity was to be be- 
stowed upon Him only at the time of the inauguration 
of the Kingdom : in that case one cannot see why 
christian tradition would have thought of represent- 

'^ A New Life of Jesus, vol. i, p. 310; above, pp. 157-165, 
143-167. 



5i6 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

ing Him clothed in His messianic dignity from the 
very moment of His resurrection. Or again — and 
this is, as we have seen, the only plausible hypothesis 
— He was thought to be the Messiah from the time 
of His earthly career, although He might postpone 
until later days the decisive manifestation of His role ; 
in that case, the first thought of tradition — if tradition 
was ever anxious to mark out the exact moment of the 
messianic consecration — must have been to assign it 
to a time long preceding the resurrection.^ 

Moreover, it is not very likely that, considering the 
high idea which people immediately formed of Christ, 
they would imagine there was a moment in His life 
when He was consecrated as Messiah, not being 
clothed in that dignity before. Even from the point 
of view considered by the critics, the very first ten- 
dency of Christian piety must have been to look upon 
the Saviour as Christ from the beginning; which is 
equivalent to say that our narratives of the Baptism 
and of the childhood do not represent the progressive 
developments of a traditional process, working upon 
the idea of Jesus-Messiah. 

On the other hand, the official recognition of Jesus 
as Messiah at the time of His baptism fits very well 
into the reality of history; it is in keeping with John 
the Baptist's role, for whom the celestial vision and 
voices seem to be intended, and with the role of Jesus 
whose entry upon His public career is thus marked 
out.2 

This messianic meaning of Jesus' baptism does not 
impair in the least the significance which we attach 
to the evangelical records of His birth. St. Mark, 
it is true, begins the story of Christ's life with the 
scene enacted on the banks of the Jordan river; but 
nothing permits us to believe that, in his eyes or in 

1 Above, p. 178-183. 

2 Above, pp. 249-253. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 517 

the eyes of the particular tradition upon which his 
narrative depends, the Saviour begins to be Christ at 
that moment, and that, only then, He is set apart 
from ordinary mankind in order to be consecrated 
Son of God and Messiah. The two other Synoptists 
relate the birth of Jesus and present Him as Christ 
from that very moment; yet, they do not fail to de- 
scribe His baptism and to attribute to it exactly the 
same significance which St. Mark gives it: hence 
they do not think that either of those two events could 
possibly impair the meaning of the other, and the bap- 
tism did not appear to them as the true consecration 
of the ]\Iessiah. Are we to believe that their view on 
the subject differed from those of primitive tradition? 
St. John himself gives to the baptism full prominence, 
and yet, we cannot doubt that, in his eyes. He whose 
baptism he relates is the Incarnate Word, the only Son 
of God, and that from His very birth.^ 

One has no right, therefore, to maintain that the 
evangelical narratives in which the Saviour appears 
clothed in His messianic dignity from the beginning 
of His ministry and from the origin of His life, are 
the outcome of christian speculation. 

The hypothesis representing Jesus as living at first 
with the consciousness of a particularly intimate union 
with God, and becoming, slowly and by degrees, aware 
of His vocation to the role of Messiah, such a hy- 
pothesis is due to the desire of giving a natural explan- 
ation of that messianic consciousness, but it is, in all 
other respects, purely gratuitous. 

Origin of the Messianic Consciousness. — For 
the texts, in fact, show that Jesus was conscious of His 
messianic dignity even before His baptism, and simul- 
taneously He believes Himself to be the Son of God. 
Loisy himself points it out as a thing worth mention- 
ing that Jesus, in His thirtieth year, "is free from 

1 Above, pp. 123, 124. 



5i8 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

every social bond, all ready to follow His vocation." 
Our critic even goes so far as to admit that the re- 
ligious sentiments and hopes of Israel, which underlie 
His conviction of being the Messiah, must have taken 
possession of His soul " from His most tender age." 
This is equivalent to recognizing that one who is free 
from rationalistic prejudices is led by all our texts to 
declare the messianic consciousness of Jesus to be as 
old as He Himself was. 

This is not all. Taken as it stands, the naturalistic 
hypothesis contains features gravely inconsistent with 
historical likelihood, and throws us into mysteries by 
far more repugnant to reason than the traditional 
dogma. 

How imagine that Jesus, at a certain moment of 
His hfe, after beheving that, so far. He simply had 
familiar relations with God, suddenly passed to the 
idea that He must be the Messiah? Let it be care- 
fully noticed that there is no question of a vulgar 
messiahship such as the common people imagined. 
That such a vocation to be a temporal Messiah, a Mes- 
siah liberator of His own people, could have sprung 
up in a mind exalted by patriotic feelings, excited by 
the glorious memories of Israel, anxious to avenge the 
honor of the chosen people by shaking off the hated 
yoke of its pagan enemies, this is quite easy to under- 
stand. But Jesus has nothing in common with a politi- 
cal and conquering Messiah ! His messiahship belongs 
entirely to the moral and religious order. And what 
an extraordinary idea He has of it ! He is no common 
preacher of the Kingdom of God, no mere converter 
of souls as John the Baptist was, nor even an author- 
ized interpreter of the Almighty's will, as were the 
old seers of Israel ; in His relations with God, He 
places Himself above the greatest prophets, above all 
men; He claims for Himself an absolute authority, 
He considers Himself the Head of mankind and af- 
firms that one day He shall judge the living and 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



519 



the dead; it is He who shall pronounce over everyone 
the sentence of eternal life or of eternal damnation, 
He who shall introduce men into the Kingdom or 
exclude them therefrom, He who shall be forever the 
supreme ruler thereof ; sitting at the right hand of the 
Almighty and sharing forever His glory. 

That the idea of such a vocation might have arisen 
from the previous sentiment of His union with the 
Heavenly Father, this sentiment itself should have 
been of an absolutely unheard of character. What 
intimacy with God must a man be conscious of, to 
think himself called upon to receive such a transcend- 
ent, such a truly superhuman and divine dignity ? The 
problem, then, is only put off; and one continues to 
strike against this enigma: how did it happen that a 
mere carpenter in a small Galilean village believed 
Himself to be the Son of God to a degree that elevates 
Him incomparably above the rest of men and war- 
rants Him in proclaiming Himself the Lieutenant of 
God by excellence, the supreme Head of mankind, 
the sovereign Judge of the living and the dead, the 
President of the eternal Kingdom of God? Illusion 
in this case would imply such a disorderly imagination, 
such an extravagant pride as are in no way shown by 
all we know about the natural conditions in which the 
Saviour lived, about the tendencies of those around 
Him, as also about the uprightness, the modesty, the 
mental balance which characterize His intellectual and 
moral temper. 

" The interior light of His conscience, Loisy re- 
marks, seems to have been His principal master, the 
teacher that helped Him to understand the world, to 
judge men, to perceive the deep meaning of that King- 
dom of God which everybody was awaiting, and whose 
realization He felt, one day, He was called upon to 
bring" about." ^ 

1 Op, cit., vol i, p. 206; cf. Retian, quoted above, p. 201. 



520 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



The origin of the messianic consciousness of Jesus, 
such as we ought to represent it to ourselves in the 
reahty of things, cannot, then, be accounted for by 
any natural explanation, that is to say by the hy- 
pothesis of an illusion. Whatever may be the part 
played by experience and personal reflection in the 
formation, in Jesus, of the interior consciousness of 
His dignity, His JNIessiahship has its foundation in the 
divine order of things : it has its origin in the very 
reality of the being which Jesus owes to His birth and 
to His relations with God. 

This is what the Gospels bear witness to ; and is not 
their testimony truly confirmed by all we know about 
the Saviour's hfe? about His teaching which forces ad- 
miration on the mind; about His works which it is 
impossible to reasonably deprive of their miraculous 
character ; about His resurrection which one cannot 
deny without doing violence to history and without 
rendering the origin of the Christian Church really 
incomprehensible; finally, about the destinies of the 
religion of which He is the founder and which is still 
living under our eyes ? 

The new explanation which Loisy, following in the 
wake of Strauss and Renan, proposes of the dogma of 
Christ's divinity, is prompted by his pantheistic the- 
ories. He affects to give a certain religious setting, 
he takes care to distinguish it from purely material- 
istic rationalism, and claims that his ultimate conclu- 
sions are not leading to the belief in a complete an- 
nihilation ; but elegant formulas do not create realities, 
and no man of sense, no thinking man can seriously 
and sincerely declare that he is satisfied with them.^ 

This is not the place to discuss the philosophical 
consequences of such a theory. The only question 
we are now concerned with is to know whether, from 

1 See, Les theories de Mr. Loisy, pp. 1 16-120. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



52J 



the point of view of evangelical history, it is exact to 
say that Jesus always and absolutely distinguished 
Himself from God, and that He never pretended in 
any way to be on an equality with God. 

The Faith of the First Christian Generation. — 
Loisy is obliged to recognize that the dogma of Christ's 
divinity is clearly formulated in the fourth Gospel, 
and expressed equivalently in St. Paul's Epistles. It 
is, indeed, an undeniable fact.^ 

Now, the fourth Gospel remains for us a first-class 
document, not only as a source of precise information 
concerning the belief of the Church at the end of the 
first century, but also as an authoritative record of 
Jesus' life and doctrine.^ 

As to St. Paul, he lived during the first christian 
generation and was in contact with the immediate 
disciples of Christ. It is impossible to believe that, 
concerning the personality of Christ, he could have 
openly and persistently put forward a teaching dif- 
ferent from and opposed to theirs. The doctrine of 
the great Apostle on such a matter must have corres- 
ponded to the sayings and teachings of the witnesses ; 
his faith must have been identical with that of the 
direct Apostles of Jesus.^ 

But such a faith is inconceivable on the part of the 
Apostles, if Jesus distinguished Himself from God as 
absolutely as critics claim He did. It cannot be rea- 
sonably accounted for, except we admit that the 
Master insinuated and suggested the idea of His di- 
vinity in a manner significant enough ; so that His own 
suggestions, together with the memories of His works 
and the miracle of His resurrection, might give rise 
to that firm belief concerning His person, which we 
find current in the earHest days of the Church. 

1 Above, p. 384 et seq. 

2 See La valeur historique du quatri^me Evangile, (M, 
Lepin, 1909), 

3 Above, pp. 400-410. 



522 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



We are not in the present case, groping about in 
the obscure domain of legend. Thanks to St. Paul's 
Epistles, we have under our eyes the very life of the 
primitive Christian community, cradle of that great 
Church of the second century which appears to us in 
the full light of history. In the time of the Apostles 
as well as in the days of St. Ignatius, of St Polycarp 
and Irenseus, the intense spiritual life of the Church 
is guided and permeated by faith in Christ the Re- 
deemer, eternal Son of God and true God Himself: 
it is logical to conclude from this fact that Jesus Him- 
self must have, in some way, suggested the idea of 
His divinity. 

As a matter of fact, what do the Gospels say? Loisy 
admits that the Synoptics bear witness to the divine 
nature of Jesus and put on His lips significant declara- 
tions bearing on this point. I mean the passages in 
which Christ calls Himself the Son, side by side with 
the Father, without adding a word; or the Son of 
God by excellence and in an absolute manner : such is, 
for instance, the sentence on the Father who alone 
knows the Son and on the Son who alone knows the 
Father; again, the statement concerning Christ, Son 
of one greater than David, the answer to Peter's con- 
fession in St. Matthew, the parable of the Wicked Hus- 
bandmen, the declaration of Christ before Caiphas, the 
trinitarian formula of Baptism. And besides, there 
are all the texts which show us the Saviour claiming 
the right of remitting sins, pretending to be greater 
than the temple. Master of the Sabbath, Lord of the 
Angels, supreme judge of the living and the dead. 

Value of the Texts.— Now, what right have the 
critics to declare all these texts unauthentic? Are 
their claims based upon a critical analysis of the docu- 
ments ? Not in the least. 

True it is that the trinitarian formula of Baptism 
and the answer to the title of Son of God given by 
Simon Peter at Caesarea, are to be found in St. Mat- 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 523 

thew alone ; but the sentence on the reciprocal knowl- 
edge of the Father and the Son, is in both St. Matthew 
and St. Luke; now, as the two Evangelists are in- 
dependent from each other, this sentence undoubtedly 
belongs to the fundamental and primitive documents 
utihzed by both. As for the sentence on Christ, Son 
of David, the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, the 
declaration before Caiphas, they are common to the 
three Synoptists and belong therefore to the primitive 
tradition. 

Almost everyone of these passages had already been 
called in doubt by Loisy in his former works, and 
we had, in a previous chapter of this book, to vindi- 
cate their authenticity, which is, by the way, admitted 
by the majority of critics, even the most independent: 
in his last work, Loisy brings forward no new argu- 
ment to support his negations.^ 

As a matter of fact, he is not so positive as regards 
the interpolation of the trinitarian formula of Bap- 
tism into St. Matthew's primitive text. Referring to 
the quotations from Eusebius of Csesarea, in which 
the formula is wanting, he contents himself with re- 
marking : " An attempt has been made to account for 
that particular feature of Eusebius' testimony; but 
it does not seem that the objection drawn therefrom 
against the authenticity of the trinitarian formula in 
Matthew's xxviii chapter, has been completely and 
successfully solved." Let us remark in connection 
therewith, that, in reality, the abnormal citations of 
Eusebius cannot give rise to any serious objection, 
since the words omitted by him are certainly known by 
more ancient writers and, moreover, quoted by the 
bishop of Caesarea himself in another passage of his 
works. On the other hand, it is in vain that our critic 
remarks that " the perfect equality of the three per- 
sons is not taught in the passage in question"; for 

1 Cf. above, pp. 324, 325, 350-355. 364-379- 



524 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

he is obliged to admit that the mention of the Son side 
by side with the Father and the Holy Ghost is none 
the less extraordinary, and suggests something which 
very closely resembles the doctrine of Trinity. " It is 
undeniable, he says, that the personal mention of the 
Holy Ghost and the juxtaposition of the three persons 
imply the existence between them — independently 
from the part they play in the economy of salvation — 
of a fundamental relation whose nature is to be de- 
termined by considerations different from those which 
the Gospel betrays in this passage." ^ 

Let us now say a word about the two passages which 
Loisy seemed to admit up to this time, or which he 
had no occasion of expressly rejecting. 

He had previously contented himself with insinu- 
ating that the discussion concerning Christ, Son of 
David, might possibly have been imagined by tradition. 
To-day he positively asserts it: but his affirmation is 
as gratuitous as ever. The passage in question, re- 
produced by the three synoptists, is a part of a series 
of episodes which offer a strikingly historical charac- 
ter ; they refer to discussions between Jesus and His 
adversaries, Pharisees and Sadducees, who have united 
themselves in order to ensnare Him by their insidious 
questions and impair His authority in the eyes of the 
multitude. But Jesus foils His enemies' efforts ; His 
answers throw them into confusion, and He Himself 
does not hesitate to take the offensive. It is what He 
does, in particular, in the circumstance now under ex- 
amination. ^ 

He asks the Pharisees : whose son should Christ be, 
according to the teaching of their Scribes? They an- 

1 Op.^ cit., vol. ii, p. 752, n. i; ibid., p. 751; cf. above p. 375; 
Th. Riggenbach, Dei- Trinitarische Taufhefehl nach seiner 
ursprungUchen Textgestalt, 1903 ; F. E. Chase, The Lord's 

.Command to Baptize, in Journal of Theolog. Studies, 1905, 
pp. 481-521. 

2 Above, p. 347. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



525 



swer: David's. This answer gives to the Saviour an 
opportunity to show, from the very Scripture to whose 
testimony they cannot take exception that Christ is 
not merely a descendant from the great King. Noth- 
ing is more conformable to the usual method of the 
Master than this way of arguing, consisting, as it does, 
in asking a question, in obtaining an admission on some 
point, and in grounding a lesson on the principle thus 
recognized as true/ 

The very terms of the discussion can be properly 
understood only if we admit the reality of the evan- 
gelical history, but would be incomprehensible from 
the point of view of a subsequent tradition. For, it 
seems, at first sight, that the Saviour intends to refuse 
the title of Son of David ; several critics have thought, 
wrongly indeed, that such was really His intention. 
Now, we know that, from the very time of St. Paul, 
in the early Church, the belief in the Davidic origin of 
Christ was firmly established. How could we com- 
prehend that tradition would have imagined a scene 
in which Christ seems Himself to deny that origin? 

Strauss who also admits the authenticity of the 
passage^ thinks that Jesus '' indirectly refused the 
title." *'In this case, he says, only one of two things 
is conceivable. Either Jesus had a solution in reserve 
which reconciled the relation of subordination involved 
in the appellation of the Messiah as David's Son with 
the relation of superiority involved in the description 
of Him as David's Lord ; but this could only have been 
the supposition of a higher nature in the Messiah, by 
means of which He was, according to the flesh or 
according to the Law, a descendant of David, but 
according to the spirit a higher being proceeding im- 
mediately from God. . . . The only remaining suppo- 
sition therefore is that Jesus considered the contra- 

1 Mark ii. 9, 25 ; iii. 4 ; Luke vii. 42 ; Mark iii. 23, S3 ', Luke 
X. 36; Matt. xxi. 31; Mark xi. 30; xii. 9, 16. 



526 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

diction as really insoluble, and therefore, as he evi- 
dently sided with the Psalms, . . intended to de- 
clare the theory of His being the Son of David as in- 
admissible." ^ 

Someone will say, perhaps, that tradition chiefly 
intended to insinuate that Davidic sonship is nothing 
in comparison with the divine filiation that belongs to 
Christ. But this difficulty remains, that the Davidic 
origin is, as it were, set aside, and this would be in- 
comprehensible at a time when controversies with the 
Synagogue were most acute, when the chief point was 
precisely to prove, against the Jews, the quality of 
Messiah belonging to Jesus, when, therefore, it was 
supremely important to bring into prominence the fact 
that Jesus was, through His ancestors, connected with 
the great King of Israel. On the other hand, it would 
be inexplicable that, concerning the idea of Christ, 
Son of God, tradition should have contented itself 
with such a discreet insinuation. The mysterious 
fashion in which Christ suggests that He is the Son 
of one greater than David is easier to understand on 
the part of the historical Christ than on the part of 
Christian piety. 

The Interrogatory before Caiphas.— Loisy is 
still less justified in attributing to tradition the in- 
vention of the scene of the interrogatory before 
Caiphas, the authenticity of which he had admitted 
until now, in agreement with all the critics. The 
episode is related by the three Synoptists, it is an 
integral part of the history of the Saviour's last days, 
and it ofifers such guarantees of authenticity as can- 
not be rejected except on set purpose.- 

First of all, the hypothesis that the scene is an in- 
vention of the apologists destined to shift the respon- 
sibility of Jesus' death from the Roman authorities to 

1 A New Life of Jesus, vol. i, p. 304 ; above, p. 347. 

2 Above, pp. 320, 321. 



I 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 527 

the Synagogue: such a hypothesis cannot be main- 
tained. Extenuated though it be, Pilate's responsi- 
bihty is none the less clearly set forth in our actual nar- 
ratives : the governor did not act on his own initiative, 
it is true ; he was willing to absolve, but he was forced 
to act against his own will : it remains true, however, 
that he condemned Jesus ; it is he who, after all, de- 
livered Him unto death ; it is his own soldiers who 
executed the sentence. His resistance previous to the 
pressure of the Sanhedrists serves only to bring into 
greater prominence his weakness and cowardice. 
Now, could we comprehend a narrative built along 
those lines, if the author really had the apologetical 
views attributed to him? If the redactor really in 
tended to disengage the Roman responsibility, he 
would have adopted an altogether different method. 
Christians, capable of inventing a condemnation by 
the Jewish Sanhedrim, would not have stopped mid- 
way; it would have been quite easy for them to com- 
pletely dissimulate the part played by Pilate in the 
tragedy of Calvary. 

Moreover, the apologetical tendencies which, in the 
judgment of critics, gave rise to this narrative, have 
no probability in their favor. The episode is related 
by the three Evangelists : it belongs therefore to the 
ancient tradition which underlies their documents. 

Now, there is nothing to show that this fundamental 
primitive tradition originated in a country and among 
people so very favorable to the Roman Empire. It 
originated in the early Palestinian Church : can we 
believe that, amidst such surroundings and at such a 
time, the desire of flattering Rome was so keen as to 
prompt such a scheme ? No doubt, the first converts 
had it at heart to win over new adepts to the Gospel ; 
but were their hearers so devoted to the honor of 
Rome that a condemnation of Christ by a Roman 
procurator would have scandalized them? There is 
not the slightest probability in favor of such a thesis. 



528 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

It seems impossible to admit that Pilate's participation 
in the death of Jesus should appear to the first preach- 
ers as an obstacle to the conversion of the non-Jewish 
element or even of the Roman citizens, and especially 
such an obstacle as to prompt them to alter unhesi- 
tatingly the facts of history in order to overcome it. 

The Gospel narrative, on the contrary, has in its 
favor every historical probability, and we may say, 
offers the best guarantees of certitude from the point 
of view of history. Jesus was crucified; this kind of 
death proves that He was condemned and executed 
by the Roman authorities : this is perfectly exact. But 
it is equally certain that the Roman government did 
not take the initiative of that condemnation; the 
Saviour's teachings did not present any feature cap- 
able of disturbing public order or of alarming the 
Procurator. Pilate judged and condemned only as a 
consequence of a previous intervention of the Jews. 

And for what reason did the Jews deliver the 
Master unto him ? They could not arraign him except 
as a malefactor and a seditious man; and this is, in- 
deed, what the Gospels tell us. But was this really 
their charge against Him? No; for they knew that 
Jesus did not plan any enterprise against the existing 
authorities, and had nothing in common with their 
ordinary messiahs ; moreover, if He had really mani- 
fested such pretensions, which corresponded so well to 
their own desires, would they have thought of de- 
nouncing Him to the Roman representative? The 
charge which they bring forward in Pilate's presence 
is, therefore, a mere formality. 

The true motive of their hatred — their constant atti- 
tude during the Saviour's ministry bears witness to 
it — is that this obscure and ignorant Galilean has as- 
sumed an extraordinary religious mission ; he has 
claimed for himself superhuman privileges and 
powers ; he has presented himself as a man of God 
sharing the power of the Almighty and realizing the 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 529 

ancient messianic prophecies in their most transcen- 
dental features; and that, indeed, in defiance of the 
authorities estabhshed at Jerusalem, nay more, in mak- 
ing it his business on every occasion to discredit and to 
impair the prestige of the same authorities. Such is 
their personal grievance against the Saviour. It has 
an essentially religious character. The case being so 
nothing agrees better with historical probabilities than 
this solemn session in which Jesus appears before the 
Sanhedrim to answer for His claims. 

The Saviour professes to be the Messiah, and the 
Messiah Son of God. For this reason He is declared 
to be " guilty of death ''. Why is not the sentence ex- 
ecuted by the Sanhedrin itself, as in the case of the 
deacon Stephen? Why, instead of being stoned after 
the Jewish fashion, in punishment of His blasphemy, is 
Jesus crucified after the Roman way, as though He 
were paying the penalty for His claims to a royal, 
title? The reason must be found in the very circum- 
stances which surround the fatal tragedy. 

Upon the unexpected offer of Judas, the Jews de- 
cided to seize Jesus during the paschal festivities, at 
a time when His Galilean followers were in great num- 
bers in Jerusalem, and when the Roman Procurator 
resided personally in the capital with his cohort. In 
such circumstances, the arrest of the Saviour ran the 
risk of causing a commotion and even of provoking 
troubles ; it could not be made without the knowledge 
of the Roman authorities. Nay more, it was advan- 
tageous to secure the help of the public forces, either 
to make sure the success of the arrest, as we are ex- 
pressly told in the fourth Gospel, or, before all, to 
bring to a successful issue the prearranged plan of 
death, according to the testimony of all our documents. 
It is, therefore, easy to understand why the Sanhe- 
drists, instead of keeping the affair for themselves, 
refer it to Pilate's tribunal, — although they are obliged 
to modify the expression of their grievances, — and 
34 



530 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

why, before the Roman governor they hasten to give 
up their rights, in order to induce him to pronounce 
the sentence himself and to charge his soldiers with 
the execution thereof.^ 

To sum up: the episode of the judgment presided 
over by Caiphas^ and in which Jesus makes a solemn 
declaration concerning His title of Son of God, has in 
its favor every historical probability, and its authen- 
ticity seems to be admitted even by Strauss.^ It is, 
therefore, the very sum total of the texts called in 
question by Loisy, that present themselves with the 
most serious guarantees of authenticity. Their signifi- 
cance in favor of Christ's divinity is admitted, and one 
cannot refuse to see in them the personal testimony of 
Jesus, except one gives up all objective and impartial 
criticism. 

Moreover, the texts under discussion are in close 
harmony with others which Loisy himself is forced to 
receive as authentic. 

The Title of Son of God —Formerly our critic 
absolutely maintained that in the authentic portions 
of the Gospels, the title of Son of God was simply 
equivalent to that of Messiah. It is in that sense 
that he tried to explain, in particular, the answer of 
Jesus before Caiphas. Since then, he came to realize 
that this last declaration has a higher meaning, which 
is one of the reasons why he now rejects the entire 
episode whose authenticity he had at first admitted 
together with the majority of critics. But it is im- 
possible to eliminate in that fashion the mass of texts 
in which Jesus speaks of His Father who is in Heaven 
and of His relations with Him: they hold too large 
a place in the Gospels. How, then, must we estimate 
them ? ^ 

1 Cf. Jo. xviii. 3. 

"Life of Jesus, Engl, trans., vol. iii, p. 210 ei seq; New 
Life of Jesus, vol. ii, p. 342 et seq. 
3 Above, pp. 281, 320. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



531 



Loisy slips in a mere foot-note this remark that, 
" many as they are " on Jesus' lips, these passages 
" do not contain an express definition of His Son- 
ship," and he contents himself with acknowledging 
that Jesus " regards himself as the Son of God in a 
very special and unique manner," not only '' because 
he is predestined to be the messianic king, but also 
on account of the interior feelings by which He was 
united to God, author of that vocation." This admis- 
sion is worth remembering. But it is necessary to con- 
sider this matter still more closely.^ 

From the many texts in which Jesus speaks of His 
Father, it follows that He, the humble, the meek and 
condescending Master, never places Himself on a level 
with His disciples, when He speaks of the Heavenly 
Father, but always on a plane apart, as though He had 
with God incomparable and incommunicable relations, 
as though God were His Father, and He His Son, 
in a unique sense. That such a way of speaking does 
not contain an '* express definition " of His sonship 
everybody will readily confess ; but is it not also true 
that it is inexplicable on Jesus' part, if He was con- 
scious of nothing more than a relation of intimacy 
with God, howev-er deep that intimacy might have 
been; if, again, the bond that connected Him with the 
Father, peculiar as it was, presented essentially the 
same characters, religious and moral, as the relations 
of other men with God? The very special language 
constantly found on the Saviour's lips, positively sug- 
gests the idea of a superior divine sonship.^ 

Besides the many texts in which Christ represents 
Himself as the Son of God, there is the series of 
declarations referring to His privileges and extraordi- 
nary powers. These passages are not less significant 
and their authenticity offers the same guarantees. To 

1 Above, pp. 485-486. 
^ Above, pp. 336-343. 



532 



CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 



claim that the formula : *' Heaven and earth shall pass 
away, but my words shall not pass away," must belong 
to the ancient apocalypse which is supposed to under- 
he the discourse in the three synoptic Gospels, and 
that the words in question are God's, not Jesus' words, 
is a hypothesis not only gratuitous but devoid of all 
probability. The contested text comes after the sen- 
tence : " Amen, I say to you that this generation shall 
not pass until all these things take place." Now, this 
sentence expresses, beyond doubt, the Saviour's 
thought, as is shown by many other evangelical texts; 
on the other hand, the declaration on the words that 
shall not pass away, is evidently a complement to the 
formula : *' Amen, I say to you," which surely does 
not belong to a foreign apocalypse, and it gives an ex- 
cellent conclusion to the authentic discourse of the 
Saviour/ 

Very extraordinary also is the Saviour's language 
in the Sermon on the Mount: ""You have heard that 
it was said to them of old . . . but / say to you." 
Strauss himself did not fail to remark it.^ 

Likewise it is in the three synoptic Gospels that 
we find the sentence on the Son of Man who is Master 
of the Sabbath. No exegetical argument warrants us 
in rejecting it. It is added to a previous remark: " The 
Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sab- 
bath " ; but the two sentences are not exclusive of each 
other. Each one conveys a lesson. This happens 
often in our synoptic documents, in which the 
Saviour's instructions are thus grouped and summed 
up in a short account that gives us nothing but the 
most salient features, set forth in mere juxtaposition. 
On the other hand, the title of " Son of Man " given 
to Jesus in this passage is in itself, whatever Loisy 

1 Above, p. 457. 

- Above, p. 308 ; Strauss, A New Life, vol. i, p. 283 et seq. 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



533 



may say to the contrary, a sure guarantee of authen- 
ticity.^ 

We cannot think of discussing here in detail the 
question of the miracles attributed to the Divine 
Master. Suffice it to remark that the Synoptists relate, 
as having been accomplished by the Saviour, a great 
many marvelous cures, several raisings from the dead, 
and various striking prodigies wrought on material 
elements. Prejudice alone and not exegesis prompts 
Loisy to call in question the miraculous character of 
the cures whose reality he is obliged to admit, to deny 
that the raising of Jairus' daughter was a resurrection 
properly so-called and that of the widow of Naim*s 
son a reality, and finally to interpret as mere symbols 
the evidently supernatural prodigies wrought by Jesus 
on natural elements. Now it is certain that this fac- 
ulty of performing miracles presents itself as inherent 
to the Saviour and in no wise borrowed from outside.^ 

Moreover, it is hard to deny that Jesus bestowed 
upon His disciples the. power of performing the same 
miracles in His own name. Loisy, however, calls this 
in question on the plea that the passage of the dis- 
course — previous to the mission of the disciples — 
which expresses the communication of this privilege, 
is to be found in St. Matthew alone and is wanting in 
the parallel passages of St. Mark and St. Luke. But 
those two Synoptists do not fail to recall elsewhere 
the same fact. And moreover, is it not sufficiently 
attested by the Acts of the Apostles, one may say even 
by the whole succession of Christian history ? ^ 

The episode of the paralytic of Capharnaum, in 
which Jesus so manifestly proves His power of re- 
mitting sins, is certainly one of the most authentic 
facts to be found in the Gospels. Here again, preju- 

1 Above, p. 54. 

2 C/. Les Theories de Mr. Loisy, pp. 314-320; above, p. 309. 

3 Mark vi. 13; Luke ix. 6; x. 17; Mark xvi. 17; above, p. 309. 



534 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

dice prompts Loisy to cut off from the text, as con- 
tradicting his theory, all that which refers to this 
power of divine forgiveness claimed by Christ. As a 
matter of fact, the instruction given by the Saviour 
presents itself in the most natural fashion, in full con- 
formity with His usual pedagogical method. He 
begins by telling the paralytic that his sins are for- 
given; the Pharisees are scandalized by such a pre- 
tension, but Jesus justifies it by the sudden cure of the 
patient. Such a way of acting, so delicate and so re- 
served, becomes the Christ of history far better than 
it does tradition. Tradition would have imagined 
a more express declaration and it would have avoided 
making Christ assume the title of " Son of Man." 

The episode of the sinful woman related by St. 
Luke has the same significance and it is no less trust- 
worthy. Christian tradition would not have invented 
such a meeting. All critics unanimously recognize 
that the scene has a decidedly historical character. 
Now, it is most arbitrary to attribute to the imagina- 
tion of the Evangelist the account of the pardon 
granted to the woman. If tradition has recorded such 
an episode, it must be owing to the significance that 
was attached to it. There is no doubt that this sig- 
nificance lies in the kindness shown by Christ to the 
sinful woman, and there is no reason to suspect that 
this kindness found an expression different from that 
recorded by the Evangelist. 

Not being content with thus remitting sins on His 
own accord, in His own name, did Jesus also grant 
this power to His apostles? Loisy admits that such 
is the meaning of the words addressed to Simon Peter 
and to the twelve according to St. Matthew's Gospel, 
He thinks, however, that these words simply express 
the situation of the Christian communities in the time 
of the Evangelist. We must recognize, then, that, 
even in those early days, it was admitted that the 
Church leaders possessed absolute authority in matters 



JESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 



535 



I 



pertaining to penitence. Now, it does not seem that 
this can be accounted for except by a tradition based 
on the words of Christ; the power of remittnig sins 
could not exist in early Christian communities except 
as the result of a formal concession or of a positive 
order of the Saviour. 

Finally, it is impossible to reasonably deny that 
Christ claimed for Himself the right of judging one 
day the living and the dead. If we may believe Loisy, 
Jesus simply thought of a separation of the elect that 
would, as it were, take place spontaneously, without 
any special intervention on His part ; at most, He pos- 
sibly reserved to Himself the right of bearing witness 
to those who will have shown themselves worthy of 
Him, and of rejecting those who shall have despised 
Him. But here again, the arbitrary method of our 
critic betrays itself. 

Two passages from St. Matthew, quoted by him, 
may, strictly speaking, fit into his interpretation : 
" Every one that shall confess me before men, I will 
also confess him before my Father who is in Heaven, 
but he that shall deny me before men, I will also 
deny him before my Father who is in Heaven." 
" Many will say to me in that day : Lord, Lord, have 
we not prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils 
in thy name, and done many miracles in thy name? 
And then I will profess unto them : I never knew you ; 
depart from me, you that work iniquity." We must 
confess, however, that these passages are susceptible 
of an entirely different explanation and that they fit 
very well into the scene of the last judgment. Very 
significant indeed is the part attributed to Christ : why 
does He assume such an attitude of authority in pres- 
ence of His Father, if the Father is the only judge? 
And then, can the sentence : " Depart from me " be 
understood in such a hypothesis ? ^ 

1 Matt. X. 32, ss ; vii. 22, 23 ; cf. Luke xiii. 26, 27 ; Matt. 
XXV. 12, 



536 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

In the many similar passages, the idea of Christ, 
Judge of men, appears clearly, and it is these passages 
that reveal the true meaning of the former ones. The 
idea does not only underlie the whole description of 
the judgment given by St. Matthew ; it is to be found 
clearly expressed in many isolated sentences like this 
one : " The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His 
Father with His angels ; and then will He render to 
every man according to his works ; " and equivalently 
in the texts of St. Mark parallel to the first passage 
from St. Matthew quoted by our critic : '' And I say 
to you : whosoever shall confess me before men, him 
shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of 
God; but he that shall deny me before men, shall be 
denied before the angels of God." '' He that shall be 
ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous 
and sinful generation, the Son of Man also will be 
ashamed of him, when He shall come in the glory of 
His Father, with the holy angels." " 

This last text is from St. Mark. Loisy recognizes 
its special significance : '' Jesus," he says, '' appears as 
a judge, not as a witness; He does not present men to 
His Father, He comes in the glory of His Father, and 
accompanied by the angels. . . Christ the Judge is 
not to bear witness any longer ; His attitude toward 
those whom the scandal of His cross will have caused 
to fall, shall be that of a divine King whose dignity 
has been offended." But, the language of the second 
EvangeHst does not fit into the hypothesis of our 
critic ; he concludes that it does not correspond to the 
authentic utterances of Jesus ; and as the hypothesis 
agrees better with the text reproduced, in a slightly 
different form, by the first Evangelist, Loisy declares 
that the " primitive form " of the sentence " has very 
Hkely been preserved by St. Matthew.^' And yet, ac- 
cording to Loisy's theory, Mark has been the founda- 

^ Mark viii. 38 ; Luke ix. 26, 



lESUS MESSIAH AND SON OF GOD 537 

tion of Matthew, and whenever the data of the second 
Gospel fit into his system, he does not fail to em- 
phasize the more primitive character thereof. The ar- 
bitrariness of the method appears at once.^ 

It is needless to remark that the idea of the judg- 
ment being presided over by the Son of Man is not 
really at variance with the sentences or parables that 
show Him sending His angels to separate the good 
from the wicked.^ 

Conclusion. — We have, then, in our Synoptic 
Gospels a whole series of texts referring to the super- 
natural privileges of Jesus, and which, being the 
counterpart of the passages that reveal the trans- 
cendency of His divine filiation, are a confirmation of 
them, and, together with them, contribute to establish 
the reality of His divinity. 

Loisy systematically rejects that mass of testimonies 
whose deep significance he cannot deny. It is preju- 
dice that inspires his criticism. There is no more 
question of scientific exegesis or of dispassionate ap- 
preciation of documents ; conclusions are determined 
upon beforehand by philosophical preconceptions. No 
impartial critic can approve such an arbitrary method. 

When one studies without bias the origin of our 
documents, when one tries to determine from the 
texts themselves, from their literary character, from 
the peculiarities of the narratives, what guarantees 
of authenticity they possess; or again, when one en- 
deavors to ascertain, on the most significant points, 
their relations with the faith of the primitive Christian 
Church, one cannot make up one's mind to see in them 
the outcome of tradition working upon historical recol- 
lections, to the extent and in the manner Loisy claims 
that it was done. When we remember that the testi- 
monies in question are to be found in the most ancient 

1 Loisy, Les Evangiles Synopf., vol. ii, pp. 25, 26. 

2 Matt. xiii. 41, 49; Mark xiii. 27; Matt. xxiv. 31. 



538 CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL 

Gospels which record the earliest traditions ; that they 
furnish us with the adequate and necessary explana- 
tion of the immediate belief of the Church in Christ, 
Son of God, we are forced to acknowledge it as a 
fully historical fact that Jesus Himself has asserted 
His divinity before the world.^ 

Thus, Jesus believed and really declared Himself 
to be the Messiah ; from the very beginning of His 
pubHc career, He regarded His mission, contrary to 
all Jewish prejudices, as a purely spiritual and moral 
one, He even foresaw that He would have to suffer 
and die, and that the Kingdom of God would be real- 
ized only after that. All attempts to explain His con- 
sciousness of being the Messiah by a natural evolution 
of His conviction that He had filial relations with God, 
are arbitrary and contrary to facts and even to histori- 
cal probabilities. Finally, the Saviour did not fail to 
manifest discreetly and to reveal in a sufficiently clear 
manner. His properly so-called divinity. 

Such are the conclusions which, after as before the 
publication of Loisy's new books, are the necessary 
outcome of a prudent and impartial criticism of the 
Gospels. 

1 Above, p. 48-56, 



LIST OF NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES 



Saint Matthew— 

i". IS p. 247 

iii. 16, 17 pp. 137-142 

iv. 3. 10 p. 139 

vi. 9 pp. 336, 2>Z7 

vii. 22, 23 p. 536 

viii. II P- 437 

viii. 29 pp. 144, 145 

ix. 1-8 pp. 154, 310, 492, 533 

ix. 15 pp. 170, 238, 508 

X. 5 p. 437 

X. 2Z pp. 456, 507 

X. Z2-ZZ p. 535 

X. 39 pp. 242, 505, 506 

xi. 3 pp. 156, 185 

xi. 25-30 pp. 356, 374, 416, 486 

xii, 5, 6 pp. 153, 493, 532 

xii. 8 pp. 153, 493, 532 

xii. 28 p. 156 

xii. Z2 pp. 54, 414 

xiii. 58 p. 415 

XV. 24 pp. 437, 438 

xvi. 13-16 pp. 167, 321-327, 488 

xvi. 17-19 pp. 325, 492 

xvi. 21-23 p. 243 

xvi. 27, 28 pp. 456, 457, 507, 536 

xvii. 5 p. 168 

xvii. 21. 22 p. 243 

xviii. 18 pp. 310, 492, 534 

xix. 16, 17 pp. 265, 291, 412 

XX. 18, 19 p. 243 

XX. 23 p. 246 

xxi. 33-43 PP- 348-355, 443, 4^7 

xxii. 41-46 pp. 345-348, 488, 524 ' 

xxiii. 36 p. 445 

xxiv. isq pp. 428-432 

xxiv. 29-35 PP- 444, 448 

xxiv. 35 pp. 493, 532 

xxiv. 36 pp. 462-468 

XXV. 31-46 pp. 311. 495, 508, 536-538 

xxvi. 28 p. 246 

(539) 



540 NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES 

Saint Matthew — 

xxvi. 57-66 pp. 489, 526-528 

xxvi. 63 pp. 61, 173, 194, 327 

XXVI. 64 pp. 173, 194 

xxvi. 65, 66 p. 328 

xxvii. II p. 474 

xxvii. 46 pp. 54, 413 

xxviii. 19 pp. 375-380, 436-439, 490 

Saint Mark — 

i. 10, II p. 137 

1- 24 pp. 143-145, 185 

?: 34 pp. 143-145, 185 

H- ^-^2 PP- 154, 310, 492, 533 

11; 19. 20 • • • pp. 170, 239, 508 

iii- 12 pp. 143-145 

lii. 23-29 pp. 156, 265, 414 

V. 7 pp. 143-145 

V. 19, 20 pp. 414 415 

vi. 5, 6 p. 415 

vii. 31-33 pp. 88, 149, 243 

vii. 33 p. 415 

viii. 23-25 p. 415 

viii. 27-29 pp. 167, 189, 321, 322 

viii. 38-ix, I pp. 456, 457, 507, 536 

ix. 6 p. 168 

ix. 9, 30, 31 P- 243 

X. 17, 18 pp. 54, 265, 291, 412 

X. 33, 34 P- 243 

X. 40 p. 416 

X. 45 pp. 246, 311 

xii. 1-9 pp. 348-355, 443, 487 

xii. 35-37 PP- 345-348, 488, 489, 524, 525 

xiii. isq pp. 427-432 

xiii. 24-30 pp. 444-456 

xiii. 27 p. 307 

xiii. 31 PP- 493, 532 

xiii. 32 pp. 54, 265, 307, 313, 413, 463-468, 

487 

xiv. 24 p. 246 

xiv. 35, 36, 39 PP- 266, 291 

xiv. 53-64 pp. 489, 526, 530 

xiv. 61 pp. 173, 191, 194, 327 

xiv. 62 pp. 173, 194 474, 508 

xiv. 63 *. p. 328 

XV. 2 p. 474 

XV. 34 pp. 54 413 

xvi. 15 pp. 436-439 



NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES 541 

Saint Luke — 

i. 1-4 p. 109 

i. 34sq. pp. 124, 48s 

i; 35 p. 123 

ii. 40, 52 p. 420 

". 49 p. 257 

ill. 21. 22 pp. 137-143 

iv, 3-12 pp. 138, 139 

iv. 18, 19 p. 152 

iv. 34, 41 pp. 144, 185 

V. 17-26 pp. 154, 310, 492, 533 

V. 34, 35 PP- 170, 239, S08 

vi. 5 pp. 153, 493, 532 

vii. 19 pp. 156, 185 

vii. 36-50 pp. 154, 492, 534 

viii. 28 p. 144 

viii- 39 p. 414 

ix. 18-20 pp. 320, 321 

ix. 22 p. 243 

ix. 26, 27 pp. 456, 507 

ix. 35 p. 168 

ix. 44, 45 p. 243 

X. 21-24 pp. 356, 374, 416, 486 

xi. 2 p. 337 

XI. 20 pp. 156, 265, 413 

xii. 8, 9 p. 536 

xiii. 29 p. 437 

xviii. 18, 19 p. 412 

xviii. 31-34 p. 243 

xix. 38 pp. 73, 173 

XX. 9-16 pp. 349-355, 443, 487 

XX. 41-44 pp. 346-348, 488, 524 

xxi. 5sq pp. 427-432 

xxi. 25-33 pp. 444-455 

xxi. 32 pp. 493, 532 

xxii. 19, 20 p. 246 

xxii. 66-71 pp. 489, 526-530 

xxii. 66 p. 327 

xxii. 69 pp. 173, 194 

xxii. 70, 71 pp. 173, 191, 194, 327-328 

xxiii. 3 p. 474 

xxiv. 47 pp. 436-439 

Saint John — 

i. 1-3, 10 pp. 400, 401, 496 

i. 26 p. 252 

vi. 14 PP- 72, 77, 147, 167, 191 

XX. 22 p. 310 

xxi. 22 p. 458 



542 NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES 

Acts of the Apostles — 

i. 6, 7 pp. 147, 463 

ii. 36 pp. 179-183 

X. 38 pp. 138, 141 

Romans — 

i. 3 p. 386 

viii. 3 p. 387 

viii. 32 p. 387 

ix. 5 pp. 390, 400 

I Corinthians — 

i. 24, 30 p. 388 

ii. 10-12 p. 314 

viii. 6 pp. 388 

II Corinthians — 

iv. 4 p. 388 

V. 19 p. 389 

viii. 9 pp. 388, 496 

Galatians — 

iv. 4-6 pp. 387, 496 

Ephesians — 

iv. 5» 6 p. 392 

Philippians — 

ii. 5-7 pp. 389, 46s 

Colossians — 

i. 1S-17 pp. 388, 496 

ii. 9 pp. 389, 496 

I Timothy — 

ii. 5 P- 392 

Hebrews — 

i. 2, 3, 10 pp. 390, 496 

X. 5 pp. 262, 496 

I John— 

iv. 9, 10, 14 P- 394 

V. 20 pp. 394, 400 

Apocalypse — 

iii. II p. 178 

xix. 10 p. 318 

xxii. 8, 9 p. 318 

xxii. 17, 20 p. 178 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Aal, Geschichte der Logosidee, vol. I, 1896. 

Abbott, T, K., Commentary on Ephesians and Colossians, 1897. 

Adams Brown, art. Parousia in Hasting's Diet, of the Bible, 

vol. Ill, 1900. 
Alexandre, Oracula Sibyllina, 2 Vol., 1841-1856. 
Allard, Histoire des persecutions, vol. I, 1885. 
Bacuez et Vigouroux, Manuel biblique, vol. Ill, 10 ed., 1900. 
Baldensperger, W., Die messianish-apokalyptischen Hoff- 

nungen des Judentums, 1903. 

Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, 2d ed., 1892. 

Bardenhewer, Les Peres de 1' figlise, French ed., "3 vol. 1898. 

Engl, transl. by Rev. T, J. Shahan, D. D., i vol., 1908. 

Batiffol, Anciennes litteratures chretiennes. La litterature 

grecque, 1897. 

Six legons sur les fivangiles, 4th ed., 1897. 

Jesus et r histoire, 2d ed., 1904. 

art. in the Bulletin de litterature ecclesiastique. 

Beer, Das Buch Henoch in Kautzsch's Collection : Die Apo- 
cryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments, 
vol. II, 1900. 

Beet (J. Agar), art. Christology in the Diet, of the Bible, 
vol. I, 1898. 

Bensly, The Missing Fragment of the Fourth Book of Ezra. 

and James, The Fourth Book of Ezra, the Latin Ver- 

sion edited, 1895. 
Berliner, Targum Onkelos herausgegeben und erlautert, 2 vol, 

1884. 
Bertholet, Zu lesaja 53, 1899. 
Beyschlag, W., New Testament Theology, translated, 2 vol., 

1895. 
Blass, F., Acta Apostolorum, sive Lucae ad Theophilum 

Liber alter, 1895. 
Boehmer, J., Reich Gottes und Menschensohn im Buche 

Daniel, 1899. 
Bousset, W., Die Religion des Judentums im neutestament- 

lichen Zeitalter, 1903. 

Was wissen wir von Jesus? 1904. Engl. tr. 1905. 

art. in the Theologische Rundschau. 

Bovon, J., Theologie du Nouveau Testament, 2 vol., 1893. 
Brandt, Evangelische Geschichte, 1893. 

(543) 



544 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Briggs, C. A. Messianic Prophecy, 1886. 

The Messiah of the Gospels, 1894. 

Bruce, A. B.. art. Jesus in the Encyclopaedia biblica of Cheyne, 

vol. II, 1901 
Bruston, C, Les predictions de Jesus, 1899. 
Budde. K., Die Sogenannten Ebed Jahwe-Lieder, 1900. 
Bugge, A., Die Haupt-Parabeln Jesu, 1903. 
Bulletin de litterature ecclesias.ique, 1903, 1904. 
Burn, A., The Athanasian Creed, 1896. 
Buxtorf, J., Lexicon chaldaicum talmudicum et rabbinicum, 

1639. 
Calmes, Le question des fivangiles synoptiques, 1898, 

L' fivangile selon Saint Jean, 1904. 

Calmet (Dom A.) Commen^aire litteral sur tous les livres 

de I'Ancien et du Nouveau Testament, 1725. 
Ceriani, Monumenta sacra et profana, 1861 sq. 
Charles, R. H., The Book of Enoch, translated, 1893. 

The Book of Jubilees, or the little Genesis, translated, 

1902, 

The Apocalypse of Baruch, translated from the Syriac, 

1890. 

The Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees, 

1895. 
art. Apocalyptic literature, in Encycl. bibl., vol. I, 1899. 

art. Enoch in Diet, of the Bible, vol. I, 1898. 

art. Eschatology, in Encycl. bibl. vol. II, 1901. 

Chase, F. E., art. in Journal of theological studies, 1905. 

art. Servant of the Lord, in Encycl. bibl. vol. IV, 1903. 

Colani, T., Jesus-Christ et les esperances messianiques de son 

temps, 1864. 
Conybeare, The Eusebian form of the Text Matth. xxviii, 19, 

in Zeitschrift fiir die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 

1901. 
Cornely, Introductio in utriusque Testamenti libros sacros, 

vol. III., 1886. 
Dalman, G., Die Worte Jesu, 1898. Engl. tr. by D. M. Kay, 

1902. 
Davidson, A. B., Old Testament Prophecy, 1904. 

art. Angel in Diet, of the Bible, vol. I, 1898. 

art. Prophecy and Prophets, ihid., vol. IV, 1902. 

Dictionnaire de la Bible, published by F. Vigouroux, S. S. 

Paris, 189s sq. 
Dictionnaire de Theologie, edited by A. Vacant and continued 

by E. Mangenot. 
Dic'ionary of the Bible (A) edited by T. Hastings, 5 vol. 

1898-1904. 
Dillmann, Liber Henoch aethiopice ad quinque codicum fidem 

editus, 185 1. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



545 



Driver, art. Son of man, in Diet, of the Bible vol. IV, 1902. 
Drummond, T., The Jewish Messiah, 1877. 

Phiio Judaeus, or the Jewish Alexandrian Philosophy, 

2 vol., 1888. 
Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia, 2d ed., 1902. 
Durand, A., La divinite de J. C. dans St. Paul, Rom, ix, 5, 

in Revue Biblique, 1903. 
Encyclopaedia Biblica, edi.ed by T. K. Cheyne and J. S. 

Black, 4 vol., 1899-1903. 
fitudes publiees par des Peres de la Compagnie de Jesus, 

annee 1903. 
Expositor, 1902, 
Fiebig, P., Der Menschensohn, 1901. 

Al jiidische Gleichnisse und die Gleichnisse Jesu, 1904. 

Pillion, fivangile selon St. Matthieu, 1879. 

Flemming, J., Das Buch Henoch aethicp. Text, 1902. 

und Radermacher, Das Buch Henoch, herausgegeben, 

1901. 
Funk, Patres Apostolici, 2 vol., 2d ed., 1901. 
Geffcken, J., Oracula SilDyllina, 1902. 
Godet, F., Introduction au Nouveau Testament, 2 vol., 1898. 

Com.mentaire sur 1' fivangile de St. Luc, 2 vol., 3d ed., 

1888. Engl, transl. 

Commentaire sur 1' fivangile de St. Jean, 3 vol., 4th ed., 

1902. Engl, transl. 
Gore, C., Dissertations on subjects connected with the Incar- 
nation, 1895. 
Grill, T., Untersuchungen uber die Entstehung des vierten 

Evangeliums, 1902. 
Grandmaison (Lecnce de) ; art. in fitudes, Jan., Aug., and 

Sept., 1903: L'expansion du Chrislianisme. 
Hackspill, L., fitudes sur le milieu religieux et intellectuel 

contemporain du N. T. in Revue biblique, Jul. 1901, Jan. 

1902. 
Harnack, A., Die Chronologic des altchristlichen Literatur, 

part II, vol. 1, 1897: Engl, trans. The history of old 

Christian Literature. 

Das Wesen des Christentums, 1903. Engl, trans. : What 

is Christianity? by T. B. Saunders, 1900. French 
trans. : L'essence du Christianisme. 1902. 

Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den 

ersten drei Jahrhunder'en, 1902. Engl, trans. : The 
Exoansicn of Christianity in the first three centuries, 
by J. Moffatt, 2 vol. 
— — Das Christen^um und die Geschichte. 5 ed., 1904. Engl, 
trans. : Christianity and History by T. B. Saunders. 

art. Zu Luc, I. 34 sq. in Zeitschrift fiir die neutesr. 

Wissenschaft, 1901. 



546 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Haupt, E,, Die Gefangenschaftsbriefe, 7 ed., 1897. 

Die eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu, 1895. 

Headlam, A. C, art. Acts of the Apostles in Diction, of the 

Bible, vol. I, 1898. 
Heinze, Die Lehre von Logos, 1872. 
Hillmann, J., art. Die Kindheitsgeschichte Jesu nach Luc, in 

Jahrbiicher fiir protestantliche Theologie, 1891. 
Holtzmann (H. J.), Enleitung in das Neue Testament, 1885; 

3 ed., 1892. 

Lehrbuch des neutestamentlichen Theologie, 2 vol., 1897. 

Die Synoptiker (Hand-Commentar zum N. T.) 3 ed.. 

1901 
Holtzmann (O.); Neutestamentaliche Zeitgeschichte, 1895. 

Leben Jesu, 1901. Engl, trans, by Bealby and Canney, 

1904. 

War Jesus Ecstatiker? 1903. 

Icard, Doctrine de M. Olier, 1889. 

Jacquier, E., Histoire des Livres du Nouveau Testament, t. I, 
2 ed., 1903. Engl, trans, by Rev. J. Duggan, 1907. 

James, art. Esdras (Fourth Book of) in Encycl. biblica, vol. 
II, 1901. 

Journal of Theological Studies, 1905. 

Jiilicher, A., Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 1894, 3 ed., 
1901. Engl, trans, by Rose Janet Ward, 1904. 

Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, 2 vol. 1886 and 1889. 

Keim, Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, 2 vol. 1867. Engl, trans. 
Kittel, Zur Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1899. 
Knabenbauer, Evangelium secundum Marcum, 1894. 

Commentarius in Actus Apostolorum, 1899. 

Labourt, J., Notes d'exegese sur Philip, II, 5-1 1, in Revue 

biblique, 1898. 
Lagarde, Prophetae chaldaice, 1872. 
Lagrange, Jesus et la critique des fivangiles in Bulletin de 

litterature ecclesiastique, 1904. 

art. Les propheties messianiques de Daniel, in Revue 

biblique Oct., 1904. 

Other articles and Book Reviews in Revue Biblique. 

Lepin, M., art. L'origine du Magnificat in I'Universite Catho- 

lique, 1903. 
Liddcn, H. P., The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 

Christ, 1866. 
Lie^zmann, Der Menschensohn, 1896. 
Lightfoot, J B., St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, 10 ed., 

1890. 

St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians and to Philemon, 

8 ed.. 1886. 
Loisy, A., Histoire du Canon du Nouveau Testament, 1891. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 547 

Les fivangiles Synoptiques, vol. I, 1893-1894. 

Etudes evangeliques. 1902. 

V fivangile et V Eglise, i ed., 1902; 2 ed., 1903; Engl. 

trans : The Gospel and the Church by Chr. Home, 2 ed., 
1908. 

Autour d'un petit liyre, 1903. 

Le quatrieme fivangile, 1903. 

art. L' Apocalypse Synopiique in Revue biblique, 1896. 

art. Le second fivangile in Revue d' histcire et de lit- 

terature religieuse 1903. 

Chronique biblique in same Review. 

Les fivangiles synoptiques, 2 vcl. in 8°, 1907-1908. 

Quelques lettres sur des questions actuelles et sur des 

evenements recents, 1908. 
Maldonat, Commentarii in quatuor Evangelistas, 1595 
Manen (Van), art. in Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1894. 
Mangenot, E.. art. Chronologic biblique, in Diet, de la Bible, 
vol. II, 1899. 

art. Fin du monde, ibid. 

Mangey, Th.. Philonis Judaei opera. London, 1742. 

Marti, K., Das Buch Jesaja, 1900. 

Minocchi, S., II Nuovo Testamento tradotto e annotate, I, 

Vangeli, 1900. 
Moffa:t, J., The historical New Testament, 1901. 
Nes.le, E., Novum Testamentum graece, 4 ed., 1903. 
Noldeke, art. Aramaic language in Encycl. bibl. vol. I, 1899. 
Nowack, W., Hand-Commentar Zum Alt. Test., 1902. 
Olier, J. J., Memoires manuscrits, 1641. 

Vie interieure de la tres Sainte Vierge, 2 vol.. 1866. 

Oltley, R. L., art. Incarnation in Diet, of the Bible, vol, II, 

1899. 
Pfleiderer, O., Urchristenthum, 1887. Engl, trans. 4 vol., by 

Montgomery. 
Philonis Judaei opera, edited by Th. Mangey, London, 1762. 
Piepenbrig, Theologie de I'Ancien Testament, 1886. 
Plummer, A., A critical and exegetical Commentary on the 

Gospel according to St. Luke, 3 ed., 1900. 

art. Baptism, in Diet, of the Bible, vol. I, 1898. 

Preuschen, E., Analecta, 1893. 

Protestantische Monatshefte, 1900. 
Rackham, The Acts of the Apostles, 1901. 
Ramsay, W., Was Christ born at Bethlehem? 1898. 
Raymond, Martini, Pugio fidei adversus Mauras et Judaeos, 

1687. 
Reimarus, H. S., Fragmente eines Ungenannten, edited by 

Lessing, 1774- 1778. 
Renan, E., Vie de Jesus, 13 ed. 1867; engi. trans, by T. H. 

Allen, 1895. 



548 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Les Apotres, 1866; Engl, trans., 1898. 

Saint Paul, 1869; Engl, trans.. 1899. 

— — L'Antechrist, 1873; Engl, trans., 1897. 

Les fivangiles, 2 ed., 1877; Engl, trans., 1885. 

L' £glise chretienne 2 ed., 1879 ; Engl, trans., 1886. 

Resch, A., Agrapha. 

Das Kindheits Evangelium nach Lucas und Matthoeus, 

1897. 
Reuss. E., Histoire de la theologie chretienne au siecle apos- 

tolique, 2 vol. 3 ed., 1864. 
Reville, J., Le Logos d' apres Philon d' Alexandrie, 1877. 

Le quatrieme fivangile, son origine et sa valeur his- 

torique, 1901. 
Revue biblique, 1892 sq. 

Revue d' histoire et de litterature religieuse, 1896-1908. 
Reynolds, H. R., art. John's Gospel in Diet, of the Bible, 

vol. II, 1899. 
Riggenbach, Th., Der Trinitarische Taufbefehl nach seiner 

urspriinglichen Tex'.gestalt, 1903. 
Robinson, J., Ar., art. Baptism in Encycl. biblica, vol. I, 1899. 
Roerich, E., La composition des fivangiles, 1897. 
Rose, v., fitudes sur les fivangiles, 2 ed., 1902. Engl, trans : 

Studies on the Gospels by Robert Eraser, 1902. 

£vangile selon saint Matlhieu, 1904. 

fivangile selon saint Marc, 1904. 

fivangile selon saint Luc, 1904. 

art. fitudes sur la theologie de St Paul in Revue biblique, 

1903. 
Russel, J. S., The Parousia, 2 ed., 1887. 
Ryle and James, Psalms of the Pharisees, commonly called 

the Psalms of Solomon, 1891. 
Rzach, Oracula sibyllina, 1891. 
Sabatier, A., L' Apotre Paul, 3 ed., 1896. 
Salmon, F., art. Mark (Gospel of) in Diet, of the Bible, 

vol. Ill, 1900. 

art. Eschatology, ibid., vol. I, 1898. 

Sanday, W., The Criticism of the fourth Gospel, 1905. 
art. Jesus Christ, in Diet, of the Bible, vol. II, 1899. 

art. Son of God, ibid., vol. IV. 1902. 

Schell, H., Katolische Dogmatik, 3 vol., 1892. 

Schmidt, H., art. in Theologische Studies und Kritiken, 1889. 
Schmid^ N., art. Son of man in Encycl. biblica, vol. IV, 1903. 
Schmiedel, O., Die Hauptprobleme der Leben Jesu Forschung, 

1902. 
Schmiedel, P. W., art. Gospels in Encycl. biblica, vol. II, 1901- 

art. John's Gospel, ibid. 

art. Mary, ibid., vol. Ill, 1902. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 549 

art. Acts of the Apostles, ibid., vol. I, 1899. 

art. in Protestantische Monatshefte, 1900. 

Schiirer, E., Geschichte des judischen Volkes im Zeitalter 
Jesu-Christi, 3 vol. 3 ed.. 1898-1901. Engl, trans: A his- 
tory of the Jewish people in the time of Jesus-Christy 
by Taylor and Christie, 5 vol. 

art. in Theol. litt. Zeitung, 1903. 

Schwartzkopff. P., Die Weissagungen Jesu Christi, 1895. Engl. 

trans : The Prophecies of Jesus Christ. 
Schwei.zer, A., Von Reimarus zu Wrede, 1906. 
Sellin, Serubbabel, 1898. 

Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der jiidischen Ge- 

meinde nach dem babylonischen Exil. I, Der Knecht 
Gottes bei Deuterojesaia, 1901. 
Shahan, T. J., Patrology; Engl, trans, of Bardenhewer's 

Patrologie, 1908. 
Soden (von) art. Chronology, N. T., in Encycl. bibl. vol. I, 

1899. 
Soltau, Unsere Evangelien, ihre Quellen und ihr Quellenwert, 
1901.- 

art. in Zeitschrift fiir die neutest. Wissenschaft, 1901. 

Soulier, La doctrine du Logos chez Philcn d' Alexandrie. 1876. 
Spitta. F., Untersuchungen iiber den Brief des Paulus an die 

Romer, 1901. 
Stanton, V. H., art. Gospels, in Diet, of the Bible, vol. II, 
1899. 

art. Messiah, ibid., vol.- Ill, 1900. 

The Jew'sh and the Christian Messiah, 1886. 

Stapfer, E., Jesus-Christ avant son ministere, 2 ed.. 1897. 

Jesus-Christ pendant son ministere, 2 ed., 1897. 

La mort et la resurrection de Jesus-Christ, 2 ed., 1898. 

Engl, trans, by Louise Houghton, 3 vol. 
Stevens, G. B., The Theology of the New Testament, 1901. 

The Teaching of Jesus, 1902. 

Strauss, F., Vie de Jesus, trans, from the 3d German ed. by 
E. Littre. 2 vol. 2 ed., 1854; Engl, trans.: Life of Jesus, 
3 vol., 1848. 

Nouvelle vie de Jesus, trans. Nefftzer et Dollfus, 2 vol." 

1866; Engl, trans.; New Life of Jesus, 2 ed., 1879. 2 vol. 

Swete, H. B., The Old Testament in Greek, 3 vol., 3 ed., 1901. 

The Gospel according to St. Mark, 1902. 

art. in Expositor, Oct. 1902. 

Thackeray, art. Esdras (Second Book of) in Diet, of the 

Bible, vol. I, 1858. 
Theologische Literaturzeitung, 1903. 
Theologische Rrndschau, 1902. 
Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1894. 



550 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Tixeront. J., art. Athanase (Symbole de Saint) in Diet, de 

theol. cath. edited by Vacant, vol. I. 
Turner, C. H.. art. Chronology of the N. T., in Diet, of the 

Bible, vol.' I, 1898. 
Usener. H., Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuehungen, I, Das 

Weihna'chtsfest, 1889. 

art. Nativity in Encycl, bibl. vol. Ill, 1902. 

Vacant, A., art. Agnoetes in Diet, de theol. cath. vol. I. 

VerneS; M., Histoire des idees messianiques, 1874. 

Vincent, M., Commentary on the Epistles to the Philippians 

and to Philemon, 1897. 
Vclz, P., Jiidische Eskatologie von Daniel bis Akiba, 1903. 
Waite, J... The second Epis'.le to the Corinthians (The 

Speaker's Commentary), 1881. 
Walker, art. Targum, in Diet, of the Bible, vol. IV, 1902. 
Weiss, B., Lehrbuch der Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 

3 ed., 1897. Engl, trans. : Introduction to the New Testa- 
ment. 1886. 

Das Leben Jesu, 2 vol., 4 ed., 1902 ; Engl, trans. : The 

Life of Christ, 3 vol. 1888. 

Lehrbuch des b^blischen Theologie des N. T., 7 ed., 

1903 ; Engl, trans. : Biblical Theology of the N. T., 2 
vol., 1892. 
Weiss, J., Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, 2 ed., 1900. 

Das aLeste Evangelium, 1903. 

Weizsacker (C. von), Untersuehungen iiber die evangelische 
Geschichte, 2 ed., 1901. 

Das apostolische Zeitalter der chrisllichen Kirche, 3 ed., 

1902; Engl, trans.: The Apes olic Age of the Christian 
Church, by James Millar, 1894. 
Wellhausen, J., Israelilische und Jiidische Geschichte, 1894, 
3 ed., 1897- 

Skizzen und Vorarbei'en, VI, 1899. 

Das Evangelium Marei, 1903. 

Wendt, H., Die Lehre Jesu, 2 vol., 2 ed., 1901 ; Engl, trans. : 

The Teaching of Jesus, 2 vol., 1907. 
Wernle, P., Die Synop'.isehe Frage, 1899. 

Die Anfange unserer Religion, 1901 ; Engl, trans. : The 

beginnings of Christianity: The Rise of the Religion, 

by G. Bienemann, 2 vol. 
Wrede. W., Das Messiasgeheimniss in den Evangelien, 1901. 
Zahn, Th., Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, 2 vol.. 

E'nleitung in das Neue Testament, 2 vol., 1899. 

7ei^schrift f^'r neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 1901. 
Zeller, Die Philosophic der Grieehen, vol. Ill, 1881. 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX 



Acis of the Apostles, Historical value of, pp. 22, 132, 133, 

134, 381; Christology, pp. 381-384. 
Adoration of Christ, pp. 316-320. 

Advent, the final, pp. 198-206; epoch, pp. 425-468, 482, 503-513. 
Allegory and Parable, pp. 350-353- 
Angel of Jehovah, p. 99. 

Angels, relation of Christ with the, 306, 307, 313. 
Apocalypse, pp. 20, 406. 
Assumption of Moses, The, pp. 65-66. 
Athanashts, Creed of Saint, pp. 396-397. 
Authority of Jesus as a Teacher, pp. 150, 151, 307, 493, 531- 

533- 
Autour d' un petit livre, p. 287. 
Baptism of Jesus, significance of the, pp. 137, 138, 184, 225- 

227, 244-253, 258, 259, 288, 331, 469, 479-481, 484, 516, 517; 

historici.y of the Gospel narratives recording the, pp 

139-141. 
Baptism, the triniarian formula of, pp. 375-380, 490, 522, 523. 
Barnabas, The Epistle of Saint, p. 5. 
Bariich, The Apocalypse of, p. 67. 
Batiffol: on the authorship of the Gospels, pp. 13, 23, 25, 29- 

30, 42, 55, 56; on the Kingdom of God, p. 435; on the 

eschatological discourses, p. 450. 
Birth of Christ, the virginal, p. 485. 
Bousset : on the " Sen of Man" in Daniel, p. 94; on Christ's 

transcendence, p. 329, 410. 
Bovon : on Christ's divinity, pp. 313, 359; on Christ's knowl- 
edge, p. 432; on the Kingdom of God, p. 435; on the 

eschatological discourses, p. 449. 
Bruce : on the authenticity of some Gospel texts, pp. 366, 2)73 '■, 

on Christ's humanity, p. 271 ; on Christ's teaching, p. 

208; on the Kingdom of God, p. 436. 
Calmes : on the authorship of the Gospels, p. 29. 
Canon of Muratori, pp. 6, 9. 
Celsus, p. 13. 
Childhood of Christ, historicity of the narratives recording 

the. pp. 107-117, 123-124. 
Christology, the doctrinal development of, pp. 282, 395-403- 
Chronology of Christ's ministry, pp. 143, 144. 
Church, the divinity and authori'y of the, pp, 3-4, 267-268, 

(551) 



552 ALPHABETICAL INDEX 

Church, the early: its belief in Jesus' Messiahship, pp. 132- 
134, 176-183; its belief in Jesus' divinity, pp. 267, 268, 
380-410. 

Clement of Alexandria, pp. 6, 7, 8, 11. 

Colani : his opinion on the impression made by Christ, p. 384. 

Confession of Saint Peter, pp. 160, 162, 167, 320-327, 374. 

Consciousness of Jesus, the divine, pp. 282, 291, 468, 469; the 
filial : its relation to the messianic, pp. 253-255 ; the source 
of the, pp. 255-261, 519; the messianic, pp. 128, 129, 198- 
262, 468, 469, 477-481, 517-520. Cf. Divinity of Christ, 
Son of God, Messiah. 

Creed of Saint Athanasius, The, pp. 396, 397. 

Dalman: on the messianic hope, pp. 91, 94, 97; on Christ's 
messianic consciausness, pp. 256, 259; on the "Son of 
Man," pp. 159, 161-164; on the "Son of God," pp. z^Z^ 
328, 336, ZZ7, 340,, 341, 345-347, 355, 3S6, 358. 

Demoniacs, the messianic declarations of the, pp. 130, 138, 
i^-i4(>, 156, 185. 

Disciples' (the), opinion of their Master, pp. 166, 188-190. 

Discourses on the end of the world : cf. End of the world. 

Divini'y of Jesus Christ : contemporary criticism, pp. 263-306, 
485-499; testimony of the Gospel of the Infancy, p. 122: 
personal testimony of the synop'.ic Christ, pp. 306-380; 
reserved expression thereof, pp. 305, 306, 410-419; source 
of the dogma of Chris I's divinity, pp. 282, 283, 290, 295, 
396-400, 408-410, 495-497, 520-522. 

Divinity of the expected Messiah, pp. 90-106. 

Dogma, the christological ; cf. Christology, Divinity of Jesus 
Christ. 

End of the world, Christ's discourses on the, pp. 443-462; cf. 
Final Advent, Last Judgment. 

Enoch, The Book of, pp. 62, 62,. 

Eschatology; cf. Final Advent, End of the World, Last 
Judgment. 

Esdras, The fourth Book of, p. 6y. 

Eusebius, pp. 11, 12. 

Godet: on the first chapt. of St. Luke's Gospel, pp. 116, 117; 
on Christ's divinity, p. 280; on the eschatology of the 
Gospels, p. 432. 

Gore : on Christ's divinity, p. 280. 

Harnack: on the transcendence of Christiani'y, pp. i, 2; on 
the messianic hope, p. 75 ; on the value and authorship of 
the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 21, 32, 2>3'y on the authorship of 
the Johannine Wri ings. p. 407; on the Gospel of the In- 
fancy, p. 108; on Christ's virginal birth in St. Luke's 
Gospel, p. 124; on Christ's humanity, p. 272; on His 
knowledge, p. 423 ; on the messianic consciousness of 



I 

I 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX 553 

Jesus: its reality, pp. 133, 134; its source and evolution, 
pp. 140, 226. 227, 229, 232, 233, 245, 255, 259; on the title 
" Son of Man," p. 163 ; on Christ's moral temperament, 
p. 212; on His humility and extraordinary claims, p. 209; 
on His teaching, pp. 210, 211; on His influence, pp. 214, 
408; on His transcendence, pp. 273, 274, 275, 276, 334, 
362, 363, 397-399, 408; on the Kingdom of God, p. 435; 
on Jesus' view concerning the universal expansion of 
the Gospel, p. 437. 
Hebrews, Epistle to the: authorship and Christology, pp. 390- 

399. 

Holtzmann, H. J. : on the authorship of the Gospels, p. 21 ; 
on the messianic hope, pp. 91, 98; on the title "Son of 
Man," pp. 159, 162, 197; on Jesus the Son of God, pp. 
324, 329, 330, 338, 347, 355, 358; on Christ's knowledge, 
p. 425; on His eschatological discourse, p. 449. 

Holtzmann, O. : on the Gospels, p. 40; on the messianic hope, 
PP- 76, 77; on the Gospel of the Infancy, p. 108; on the 
significance of Christ's baptism, pp. 138-140; on the evo- 
lution of Christ's messianic consciousness, pp. 225, 227, 
228, 232, 257, 258, 261, 355; on Christ's character, p. 212; 
on His knowledge, p. 425 ; on His transcendence, pp. 276, 
277. 355, 358. 

Holy Spirit, the. His relation to Jesus, pp. 122, 123-125, 137- 
139, 224, 225, 244, 250, 288, 330-332; subject to Jesus' 
power, p. 311. 

Humani;y of Christ, the, pp. 263-266, 271, 272, 279, 411-415, 
419, 420. 

Humility of Jesus, the, pp. 209, 210, 272, 273. 

Husbandmen, the parable of the wicked, pp. 348-355, 487, 488. 

Ignatius of An'ioch, Saint, on Christ God, pp. 399, 400. 

Ignorance of the Son of God concerning the last judgment, 
pp. 413, 462-468. 

Illusion, Hypothesis of Christ's messianic, pp. 198-204. 

Imposture, Hypothesis of Christ's, pp. 198, 199. 

Influence of Jesus, the, pp. 212-215. 

Irenaeus, Saint, on the Gospels, pp. 7, 10; on Christ God, p. 

399. . 
John, Samt, the Gospel and Epistles of : authorship, pp. 8-10, 

19, 20, 23, 289, 521 ; Christology, pp. 394-396, 406, 407. 
John the Baptist, Saint, pp. 137, 156, 157, 185, 186, 237, 247, 

248, 249, 478, 479. 
Jerusalem, the Fall of, pp. 16, ^\ cf. Prediction; Christ'c 

en'ry into; cf. Palm Sunday. 
Jubilees, the Book of, p. 66. 
Judgment of Christ by Caiphas, pp. 173, 191, 194, 195, 207, 

327-330, 489, 526-530. 



554 ALPHABETICAL INDEX 

Judgment, the last, Christ's part in, pp. 169, 170, 207, 310, 
311, 494, 535-537. 

Jiilicher: on the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 28, 36, 39, 50, 51-55; 
on the first chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, p. iii; on the 
parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, p. 351 ; on the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 391 ; on the Gospel of St. 
John, p. 407. 

Justin Martyr, Saint, on the Gospels, pp. 5, 12; on the Mes- 
siah expected by the Jews, pp. 79, 89, 104, 105; on the 
Christ God, p. 399. 

Keim : on the reciprocal knowledge of the Father and the 
Son, p. 360. 

Kingdom of God, Jewish views of the, pp. 80-87; Jesus' 
teaching on the, pp. 175, 176; spiritual character of the, 
pp. 475, 476, 500. 

Knowledge of the Father and the Son, the reciprocal, pp. 
355-357, 486. 

Lagrange: on the Synop'.ic Gospels, pp. 25, 29, 42, 56; en the 
messianic hope, p. 106; en the "Sen of Man" in Daniel, 
pp. 94, 95; en the Kingdom of God, p. 435; on Christ's 
eschatolcgical discourse, p. 450; on Christ's knowledge, 
pp. 467, 468. 

Logos, pp. 100-103; the Incarnate Logos, pp. 394-400, 

Loisy: on the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 17, 21, 22, 25, 26, 29, 36, 
2,7, 38, 40, 47, 52, 509-511; on the fourlh Gospel, p. 407; 
on the authenticity of some texts from the Synoptics, 
pp. 145, 160, 162, 241, 242, 246, 290, 347, 350, 351, 353, 
354, 364-367, 376, 415, 416, 483, 485-494; on the authen- 
ticity of the Gospel of the Infancy, pp. 107, 108; on 
Christ's, virginal conception, pp. 123, 124, 484; on the his- 
toricity of the records of Christ's baptism, pp. 140, 141, 
479, 480; on the significance of Christ's baptism, pp. 140 
246, 251, 252, 479-481, 484; on Christ's temptation, pp. 
141, 470, 471 ; en the duration of Christ's public ministry, 
p. 144; on Christ's messianic manifestation, pp. 135, 136, 
145, 149, 150, 183, 184, 473; on the title "Son of Man," 
pp. 160, 162; on the escha'.ological Messiah, pp. 174, 175, 
183, 184, 476, 477; on the source of the messianic con- 
sciousness, pp. 140, 478, 479; on its evolution, pp. 233-23^, 
252, 254, 260, 261, 479-484; on Christ's foresight of His 
passion, pp. 242 246, 482, 483; en Christ the Redeemer, 
p. 246; on Christ's prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, 
p. 429; on His knowledp^e of the end of the world, pp. 
423, 424, 425, j=?9, 463, 481; on the Kingdom of Gcd, pp. 
^2,3, 434; on Christ's miracles, p. 4QI ; on His divinity, 
pp. 280-306, A17, 485-496; on ^he title "Son of God," 
pp. 320-330, 485-491 ; on Christ's transfiguration, p. 141 ; 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX 



555 



on His grandeur, pp. 246, 519; on the worship of Christ, 
PP- 319. 320, 393; on St. John the Baptist, pp. 187, 478; 
on the primacy of St. Peter, p. 326; on the Chris. ology 
of St. Paul and St, John, pp. 283, 290, 296, 496; on the 
meaning of the dogma of Christ's divinity, p. 498; on 
Loisy's method of criticism, pp. 509-512, 537, 538. 

Luke, the Gospel of Saint, pp. 8-10, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 
30, 31, 42, 43. 50. 

Mark, the Gospel of Saint, pp. 8-10, 19, 20, 21, 24-29, 31, 47; 
its final chapter, p. 436. 

Matthew, the Gospel of Saint, pp. 8-10, 19, 20, 21, 23-29, 31, 
32. 

Memra, or the Word of God, pp. 100-103; cf. Logos, 

Messiah, the; the messianic hcpe, pp. 59-72; the Jewish idea 
of his character and mission, pp. 72-77; his kingly des- 
tiny, pp. 77-87; the suffering Servant, pp. 87-89; his pre- 
existence, pp. 90-106; sources of early Christian belief 
in the Messiah, pp. 132-134; the messianic manifes'.a^ion 
of Jesus in His infancy, pp. 117-121; the messianic con- 
sciousness, pp. 128, 129, 198; Jesus' personal manifesta- 
tion of His messiahship, pp. 128-173, 473-475, 484, 513- 
515; His reserve in this manifestation, pp. 129-131, 143- 
150, 165, 167, 168, 183, 235, 236; popular messianic pre- 
judices, pp. 146, 147, 502; idea of the eschatclogical Mes- 
siah, pp. 131, 174-197, 281, 476; basis of the messianic 
ccnscicusness, pp. 198-215; i:s source and evolution, pp. 
198-262, 469, 470, 477-485, 517-520. 

Ministry of Jesus, the duration of the ; cf. Chronology. 

Miracles : their existence denied by Rationalists, pp. 34, 35 ; 
miracles wrought by Christ, pp. 151, 152, 309, 491, 533; 
by His disciples, pp. 154, 15=;, 309, 491, 533. 

Mcses, the Assumpiicn of, pp. 65, 66. 

Ori^en : on the Gospels, p. 7. 

Palm Sunday, pp. 172, 173. 

Papias : on the Gospels, p. 12. 

Parable and allegory, pp. 350-353. 

Parables cf the Kingdom of God, pp. 433-435. 

Passion, Christ's foresight of the, pp. 170, 171, 202-204, 220, 
221, 230-233, 234, 235, 238-244, 482, 5o8-_5i3- 

Paul, the Epistles of Saint, their authenticity, pp. 384-386; 
their Christclogy, pp. 384-410. 415, 416, 496; the'r idea 
of the Kingdom of God, p. 460; value of St. Paul's tes- 
timony concerning Christ, pp. 400-410, 522 ; difference 
between S\ Paul and Jesus, p. 418. 

Peter, Saint, his confession of faith, pp. 167, 168, 188, 189, 193, 
194, 243. 322-327, 374, 375; his primacy, pp. 324-327- 

Philo, pp. 80, 82, 102, 104, 105. 



556 ALPHABETICAL INDEX 

Portrait of Christ's moral character, pp. 209-212. 

Preaching of the Gospel, the universal, pp. 436-441, 442, 443. 

Predictions of Jesus, p. 421; concerning ^he fall of Jerusalem, 
p. 426-432, 444-460 ; concerning His Passion ; cf. Pas- 
sion; concerning the end of the World; cf. End of the 
World. 

Pre-existence of the Messiah : according to Jewish traditions, 
pp. 90-95; according to the Johannine Writings, pp. 345, 
394-396; according to St. Paul's Epistles, pp. 387-394; ac- 
cording to the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 343-345. 

Privileges and powers claimed by Jesus, pp. 152-155, 168-172, 
306-315, 491-494, 531.-536. _ 

Protestants, liberal : their opinion on the origin of the mes- 
sianic consciousness of Jesus, pp. 215-233; on Christ's 
divinity, pp. 271-279, 341, 357:363. 

Protestants, conservative : on Christ's divinity, pp. 279, 280. 

Psalms of Solomon, fhe^ pp. 6^, 64. 

Quatrieme Evangile, Le, p. 289. 

Quelques lettres, p. 497. 

Rationalists : on miracles, pp. 34, 35 ; on the Gospel of the 
Infancy, p. 107; on Christ's baplism and tempta'ion, p. 
139; on Christ's messianic consciousness, pp. 128, 129; on 
His person, pp. 266-271, 537. 

Redemption, the idea of: is connection with the personal 
teaching of Jesus, pp. 246, 394, 398, 399. 

Reimarus : his system, p. 503. 

Renan: on miracles, p. 34; on the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 19, 
21, 30-32, 34, 35, 109; on the Johannine Writings, p. 406; 
on the source of the messianic consciousness, pp. 163, 198- 
206; en the title " Son of Man," p. 163; on the Kingdom 
preached by Jesus, pp. 200-203, 460, 461 ; on Christ's fore- 
sight of His passion, p. 204; en the end of the world, pp. 
425, 461 ; on Christ's humanity, pp. 266, 267 ; on the title 
"Son cf God," pp. 200, 201, 334; on Jesus' transcendence, 
pp. 163, 210, 212-214, 267, 269, 270,. 397, 398, 401, 402. 

Resurreclicn cf Christ: relation to His messiahship, pp. 129, 
133, 176-183, 515; relation to the divine sonship, p. 386. 

Reuss : on Christ's transcendence, pp. 342, 343. 

Sabbath, Christ's authority over the, pp. 153, 308, 493, 532. 

Sanday: en the Gospels, pp. 50, 51, 407; on the messianic con- 
sciousness, p. 237; on Christ's baptism, pp. 248, 249, 250; 
en the title "Son of Man," p. 164; on the Kingdom of 
God, p. 435; on Christ's knowledge, p. 433; on His di- 
vinity, pp. 280, 335, 34S, 387. 

S chemoneh Esreh, pp. 67-69. 

Schmid% N. : on the Logos in Philo, p. 104; on Jesus' claim 
to messiahship, p. 130; on the title "Son of God," pp. 
324, 338, 340, 355, 367; on Christ's divinity, p. 409. 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX 557 

Schmiedel, Otto: on the source of the messianic conscious- 
ness, p. 203. 

Schmiedel, P. W. : on miracles, p. 51; on the Gospels, pp. 21, 
28, 36, 407; on Christ's virginal birth, pp. 123, 124; on 
Christ's humanity, p. 54; on the prophecy of the fall of 
Jerusalem, p. 430; on the escha^ologcal discourse, p. 449. 

Schiirer: on the hypostatic wisdom, p. 100; on the Jewish 
belief in a suffering Messiah, p. 91. 

Servant of Jehovah, the, pp. 87, 88. 

S.bylline Books, the, p. 65. 

Sincerity of Jesus' claims, the, pp. 198, 199, 

Son of David, the Messiah, pp. y2, JZ', Jesus, pp. 172, 173, 
345-348, 488, 524-526. 

Son of God, primary meaning, pp. 95-97 ; Jewish application 
to the Messiah, pp. 97-99; messianic import, pp. 137-139, 
253-255. 281, 282, 293, 320-330, ZZZ, 336, 486, 530; divine 
sonship, pp. 200, 201, 217. 218, 222, 225, 226, 2ZZ, 234, 330- 
ZZ^, Zo7-Z^Z, 486, 530; special sense, pp. 200, 226, 27Z, 
274, 336-340, 361-363, 409, 410; consubstantial union, pp. 
321, 322, 346, 375, 386-392, 486-489, 521-538. 

Son of Man: the Messiah, pp. 93-95; Jesus, pp. 54, 130, 157- 
165. 

Stanton: on the Gospels, pp. 22, 2y, 28, 55. 

Stapfer: on the messianic consciousness, pp. 216-222, 245; 
on Christ's humanity, pp. 271, 272; on His knowledge, 
p. 425; on His prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem, p. 430; 
on His divinity, pp. 271-273, 277-279. 

Stevens: on the messianic manifestation, p. 134; on the tile 
"Son of Man," p. 164; on Christ's knowledge, p. 432; on 
the Kingdom of God, p. 435 ; on the expansion of the 
Gospel, p. 437; on Chris.'s eschatological discourse, p. 
499 ; on His divinity, pp. 280, 335, 339,^ 342, 384, 393. 

Strauss: on the Gospels, p. 2Z\ on the spiritual character of 
the Kingdom of God, p. 500; on Christ's reserve in His 
messianic manifestation, pp. 502, 515; on (he source of 
His messianic consciousness, pp. 478, 479; on His fore- 
sight of His passion, pp. 482, 512, 513; significance of His 
baptism, p. 484; on the Kingdom of God. p. 508; on 
Jesus' claims to divinity, pp. 486, 487, 494-496, 525, 530; 
on the meaning of the dogma of His divinity, p. 499. 

Synop'ic Gospels, the: authorship and historicity, pp. 2-56; 
the Synoptic problem, pp 24-29. 

Talmud, the, pp. 78, 83, 86, 87. 89. 

Targums, the, p. 69. 

Tatian: on the Gospels, p. 6; on the Christ God, p. 399. 

Teaching of Jesi^s. pp. 210-212, 308. 

Tem.ptation of Christ, pp. i37-i43, 220, 227-229, 236-238, 480, 
481. 



558 ALPHABETICAL INDEX 

Tertullian: on the Gospels, pp. 7, 9. 

Transfiguration of Christ, pp. 141, 166, 168, 185. 

Universality of the Gospel; cf. Preaching of the Gospel. 

Virginity of Mary; cf. BirLh of Christ, the virginal. 

Von Weizsacker : on the Gospels, p. 27. 

Weiss, B. : on the Gospels, pp. 21, 26, 407; on the source 
and evolution of the messianic consciousness, pp. 225 
226, 229, 231, 232, 246, 247, 249, 250, 251, 334; on the 
title "Son of Man," pp. 164, 165; on Christ's knowledge, 
p. 432; on His prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem, p. 429; 
on the Kingdom of God, p. 435 ; on Christ's divinity, pp. 
.274, 275, 334, 339, 358, 360, 361. 

Weiss, J. : on the Gospels, pp. 26, 47 ; on the messianic mani- 
festation, p. 134; on the eschatological Messiah, p. 174; 
on Christ's transcendence, pp. 277, 329. 

Wendt: on the messianic hope, p. 106; on the messianic mani- 
festation, p. 148; on the source and evolution of the mes- 
sianic consciousness, pp. 222, 224, 228, 229, 230, 231, 246, 
247, 256, 257, 334, 335; on the title " Son of Man," p. 165; 
on Christ's knowledge, p. 432; on His prophecy of the 
fall of Jerusalem, p. 429; on His eschatological dis- 
course, p. 449; on the Kingdom of God, p. 435; on the 
expansion of the Gospel, p. 437; on Christ's divinity, p. 
. 275. 

Wernle: on the source and evolu'.ion of the messianic con- 
sciousness, pp. 221, 222, 259, 260; on the Kingdom of God, 
p. 432; on Jesus' moral character, p. 210; on His hu- 
mility and extraordinary claims, p. 212; on His transcend- 
ence, pp. 272, 273, 276, 358, 409. 

Word, the; cf. Logos. 

Wrede: on miracles, pp. 51, 52, 417; on the messianic secret, 
p. 131 ; on Christ's divini y, p. 417. 

Zahn : on the Gospels, pp. 21, 27, 407. 



(\- 



T1l« 



".V* ^ 


















^^-n^. 



.0' 



'^^ ** 






V * 








^^ <-^ ^i^^^^mPk'^ -^MrS ^is^M^^^^ -^^ ci>' 



-bV 




,Ho^ 




^oK 



^^-^^^ 



**\'^'%'e, /,.-^;4i,^°o o**.:^:'''-^ 





, •» <L* 








.«' 







.v*^. 



^>^c 



: .v^^^ ^.wmm;: ^v^^^ \wmw: .v^. 







o V 



0-7^^. >^i^':^^^.* ^Hq^ :^i5^>o' iOv: 







'oK 















ll-RAHy BINOlilO V <^ 

^§m FLA. ^?1S^ • ^ Or 



y ^^ 



<^> •» 












